Charisma Carpenter, Ray Fisher respond to Joss Whedon and send each other words of support
Earlier this week, Whedon opened up about on-set misconduct allegations in a Vulture profile
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It’s been well over a year since actors Ray Fisher and Charisma Carpenter shared their personal experiences of Joss Whedon’s alleged actions on the sets of Justice League, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, and Angel. In a Vulture profile published earlier this week, Whedon finally responded to these claims. However, Carpenter and Fisher quickly called out Whedon for what they viewed as an inability to be “accountable” and “apologize.”
In the Vulture piece, Whedon called Fisher a “bad actor” and stated his claims were not “true or merited discussing.” Whedon also calls his experience working with Carpenter “delightful and charming” even though Carpenter previously detailed Whedon’s alleged “history of being casually cruel.”
Carpenter showed support for Fisher and called out Whedon for his words in Vulture, writing, “#IStandWithRayFisher, the ‘malevolent force’ and ‘bad actor in both senses’ who poisoned my mind with trendy buzzwords and corrupt ideas about my experiences with a former tyrannical narcissistic boss who is still unable to be accountable and just apologize.”
In a statement of his own, Fisher shared similar words of support for Carpenter and wrote, #IStandWithCharismaCarpenter who (like this ‘bad actor in both senses’) has no agency in determining matters of abuse or race, but for the influence of a White male shadow puppeteer.”
Carpenter also issued a statement defending Gal Gadot, who last year said Whedon allegedly made attempts to threaten her career while filming Justice League. Gadot also said Whedon accused her of not understanding English well enough.
In response to Gadot’s claims Whedon told Vulture, “I don’t threaten people. Who does that? English is not her first language, and I tend to be annoyingly flowery in my speech.”
“I believe Gal Gadot not only understands career threats in English but Hebrew and Arabic. Possibly French, Spanish, and Italian too,” Carpenter’s statement read.
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““I believe Gal Gadot not only understands career threats in English but Hebrew and Arabic. Possibly French, Spanish, and Italian too,” Carpenter’s statement read.”
I believe Gal Gadot doesn’t need anyone to speak for her, since she has already spoken for herself, in the very article that you’re responding to.
I start to think our attitude toward Joss Whedon should be like toward John
Wilkes Booth after the assassination of good Lincoln. “We want to hear his name no more”
How well-known was Booth before that?
Pretty famous, though one or two members of his acting family were even better known
Joss is definitely the best-known of his TV writing family.
I kinda hope his brother and sister-in-law lay low so they can still work. I rather liked Agents of Shield and wouldn’t hate getting another series out of them.
What’s his Baldwin equivalent, do you think? Stephen?
I think that is about right
Thanks. I need history explained in Baldwins or else it’s just gibberish to me
That’s why I always tell people about the Civil War by referencing the Alec Baldwin/Kim Basinger divorce.
The Hemsworth analogy below makes me imagine Stephen killing Biden while yelling “Always be closing!”
I will still stand by this but Stephen Baldwin was both 100% perfect and excellent as McManus in The Usual Suspects. He also has loads of great quotes including when murdering or about to murder people that could be used in this exercise.
Alec.
Wasn’t he considered the preeminent Shakespearean actor of his time? Unlike other assassins who commit these acts in part to make their names known, he was pretty famous already … which makes his story all the more bizarre. Shakespeare in America and Manhunt are two great books that cover parts of Booth’s life – the former his life as an actor, the latter the manhunt to catch him after the assassination.
That was his brother Edwin who was an acclaimed Shakespearean actor. John perfomed in less serious fare, though was also well-known. They’re probably more like Dennis and Randy Quaid. John Wilkes Booth famously shouted “SHITTER’S FULL!” when he shot Lincoln.
“SIC SEMPER SHITTERS!”
Thus always to Shitters?
is what I say aloud before every bowl-winder.
So THAT’s what “sic semper tyrannis” means …
His brother Edwin Booth is considered by many the greatest American actor of the 19th centuryhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Booth
And yet John Wilkes Booth is the most famous American actor of the 19th century. So much for “We want to hear his name no more.”
No, it was his brother, Edwin, who was the preeminent Shakespearian actor of his time. His career even survived his brother assassinating Lincoln. Ironically, a few months before the assassination, Edwin Booth actually saved Robert Lincoln from serious injury and possible death on a train platform. When he assassinated the president, Edwin (who’d been feuding with his brother) disowned him completely and refused to have his name spoken in his house.
So JW Booth was a bad actor in only one sense.
You totally slipped John Wilkes Booth the time and date of when to be at that theatre, didn’t you alternate universe evil version of President Lincoln?
He was the Daniel Baldwin of his time
As an Australian, we should tread carefully with these scenarios as everyone worth anything hates our PM for being a shifty no good weasel and hence would not risk the fallout of inviting him to a movie premiere in the first place.He’s been a scumbag and scumbag adjacent for a long time now.https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/nasty-saga-you-nearly-missed-20091025-hem5.htmlTranslation – how he got his seat in parliament despite coming dead last in I guess you could call the equivalent of a primary.
He’s got a great ass, though.
Considering how loathsome our current PM is, most of us would welcome Liam Hemsworth taking him out. The only statement Chris would be required to make would be, “On ya, Liam.”
We don’t talk about Joss, no no no
LOL, my kids are Encanto crazy so I hear “We don’t talk about Bruno” several times a day
It’s pretty standard Disney fare but the songs elevate it way above most of the crap they put out. I’m not a huge Lin Manuel Miranda fan but he outdid himself there.
“I start to think our attitude toward Joss Whedon should be like toward JohnWilkes Booth after the assassination of good Lincoln. “We want to hear his name no more””
You want people to still be talking about him 150+ years late?
Was he a good Lincoln, though? I see your hand in this!
To be fair, Lincoln was kinda a dick
Y’know, I don’t want to be a pottymouth here, but I’m starting to think this Joss Whedon guy is kind of a jerk.
Whoa! Tone it down there, buddy.
Ladies and gentlemen, this man is for the birds!
He’s an unspeakable cad of the highest order!
He’s the bee’s knees!Did I do it right?
Which was a shocking thing to say, considering that he absolutely did not rape and murder a girl in 1990.
Well, that just went and made me happy. Oh, Norm.
The cur!
Hey, watch your cocksucking mouth!
Thinking back, something I realized made the article have such a weird tone is that Whedon’s answers were constantly so absurd that the writer herself didn’t really know what to do with them. There have been interviews like that published before and there is an approach to them where you try to create a neutral space for the interviewed person to express themselves in and allow others to judge them by their words. The issue was that Whedon’s responses kept being so insane that it required massive amounts of work to keep the presentation neutral.The reason I bring this up here is that Fisher or Gadot situations were prime examples of this as there were such simple answer Whedon could have given. For example with Gadot he could have said that it was a stressful reshoot and in the heat of the moment he may have said something that was misunderstood. Doesn’t make things right, but that at least the kind of plausible semi-explanation. Instead we got that WTH interpretation of events and the writer just kind of leaves it there.
There’s something to be said about a guy whose been #MeToo’d, whose work is been re-evaluated, and who doesn’t seem to have any future prospects and yet has people paying attention to him by simply saying weird shit. Like, this isn’t a man who wants to rehabilitate his image or make amends. He wants to prolong the train crash that is his career.
Slight correction, and I think this is where the article itself failed a bit, Whedon wasn’t MeToo’d. That wasn’t at all what sank his career and really the only reason he was so vulnerable to the allegations was because his career was at that point dependent on a certain perception of him as a person that the allegations of work place behaviour challenged.Something I also think the article struggled a bit with is that the Snyder Cut was one of the worse things to happen to Whedon’s career. And not because of some really weird conspiracy theory that I don’t know why was even brought us much there as it was, but because it made evident what were the changes that Whedon did. Which in turn was really harmful for him in the midst of all the allegations.
Ehh… I agree that his infidelity, using feminism as a shield, and inappropriate workplace romances weren’t what sank his career, but it’s not like there isn’t an element of using his power over women in the workplace to his own advantage, no matter how much he insists he was “powerless.”
“Slight correction, and I think this is where the article itself failed a bit, Whedon wasn’t MeToo’d.” – I think the multiple allegations of bullying, shaming, and having relations with female subordinates quite clearly puts his career demise on the spectrum of #MeToo accountability. #MeToo doesn’t just apply to male-female relations, and it doesn’t just apply to flat-out rape.
“#MeToo doesn’t just apply to male-female relations, and it doesn’t just apply to flat-out rape.”
It *is* specifically about sexual assault though.
He was Me Too’d indirectly. None of the employees he had sexual relationships with spoke up but other people described a poisonous workplace environment. Even if whichever twentysomething he was rolling around on the floor with doesn’t have anything bad to say about him, it made everyone uncomfortable. And it’s highly likely that at least one of the subordinates he slept with does look back and feel shitty about the situation and the fact that he had power over her even if none of them ever comments publicly. He was their boss and much older than them.
The problem with the “Snyder Cut” is that it became a sort of reverse-strawman even before it was released. It was kind of destined to be better received just by nature of not being the theatrical version. And that’s valid for the most part, if only because a film that’s consistent in tone is going to be better than something as slapdash and incoherent as the theatrical cut. But Snyder was given a rare gift: a second chance to make a movie without having a first chance. The Snyder Cut wasn’t some finished film sitting on a shelf since 2017. It was essentially made in two big chunks several years apart, and he benefited enormously from that time in between. He never would have been able to make a 4 hour (or even a two-part) movie in 2017 with the kind of freedom he was given in 2020. Hell, he definitely didn’t have the total budget he ended up with, either. Additionally, he had the advantage of absorbing the critical (and more importantly) audience response to the theatrical cut (much of which still bore his fingerprints) and adjust his story and direction accordingly. Even if he only made minor changes, it’s still significant. The Snyder Cut is a strange hybrid: it’s both an “original” vision and a remake. Also: it fucking sucks. That’s mostly irrelevant to the discussion, but it’s worth mentioning every time someone brings it up.
Not to mention how self indulgent it is. “Hey, we’ve got a second chance to make a coherent movie. Let’s double the run time and toss in a bunch of extra stuff that we’re never going to be able to pay off on.”
On your general argument about the gift given to Snyder and the narrative built around, there’s literally no reporting I’ve seen that would support that. Actually it was Whedon and co who did the reshoots, Snyder only shot the epilogue scene during the final process and based on everything written, it was as close to his original vision as possible. Also that 2017 Justice League did not have Snyder’s fingerprints on it considering how much they tried to refilm everything, even if the basic plot remained the same.Having written all that, that’s not why I would argue the Snyder Cut was so bad for Whedon. Even the four hour impossibility is a given, but that was the reality before the Snyder Cut. The issue is that when that Cut came out, there was suddenly a possibility of actually comparing on how Whedon and Johns had ‘improved’ the film and that was staggering. It wasn’t just that they couldn’t keep all the scenes, they’d made changes to almost every scene which didn’t save time compared to how it originally ran and actually made things worse. A lot of best jokes were actually in the original version, the action flowed so much better in the original version. What was worse was that a lot of the changes also actively removed agency from female and POC characters. It was really bad because it hit at this core part of the Whedon myth about his ability as a script doctor and what he knew of making things flow better.Also, the Snyder Cut was fucking awesome. It’s irrelevant to the discussion as the core issue isn’t about if one liked the movie or not, but it is good to just shout out there as well.
I have only seen the original ‘Justice League’, not the Snyder Cut, and as much as you can see the Whedon in it, I’d still say it has Snyder’s fingerprints on it. The heavy bro-vibe, the self-seriousness (which can co-exist with jokes), the general aesthetic of hulking figures with massive weapons and armour, all are very much on-brand for Zack.
…I mean you also described a lot of elements of Whedon’s Avengers?This one is difficult as there is a lot of factors to this. The thing I can say that as someone who did like the Snyder DCEU films and was meh on the Whedon Justice League film, I always originally thought that while that Justice League film was clumsy, it was more because of editing down and perhaps certain interference from Geoff Johns. It wasn’t until I watched the Snyder Cut that I realized how fundamentally Whedon had altered of the scenes. Again the story is basically the same, but they just… It’s weird. Like for example, the general claim is that Whedon was brought to bring in humor, but when you actually see what was the humorous parts he added, it really comes across as bad while the actual bits that were generally considered funny were actually from Snyder’s version.There’s been a lot of analyses done on the changes, and I’m not talking about some Snyder fanatics, with almost all of them being really damning on Whedon. You can still dislike the movie, I pretty much don’t care unless someone dedicates themselves to shout about it to me, but the changes were so incomprehensible that it did damange a certain aspect of the Whedon myth.
Speaking of completely irrelevant to the discussion, I’ve just had an idea for a different way to have done JL, and I can’t tell if it’s a good one or a really terrible one. Have a Justice League film that’s set some time in the future, like five years from “now”, and have a League that is well established but also in bad shape. They’re fighting some Darkseid-level threat – though maybe not Darkseid, because he’s still too close to Thanos as an opponent – and not doing well. The film starts somewhere in the middle of the conflict and there’s clearly some backstory missing. End it on a downer note, like ‘Infinity War’. Then, the next few films go back to the “present” and are individual movies for the Leaguers that tell their own stories but also build up to the central conflict of the last movie and establish the League slowly. And then you get ‘Justice League: Part 2′; the backstory’s been filled in, the characters all have some depth, and you’re ready to pick up where the story left off and see our heroes triumphant. It would take the kind of patience and planning that WB has in no way shown so far, and could fail at a number of points, but it would also be at least a different take.
Eh, I think it was a long, slow unraveling. His biggest fan site closed its doors shortly after his ex-wife accused him of infidelity with young actresses hoping to get cast on Buffy, which is gross and a huge problem for someone who has represented himself as a champion of women. But hey, it’s not all that uncommon in Hollywood, and is not necessarily a dealbreaker for a major studio, though it certainly cost him a lot of fans.
Separately but related to that, multiple people have asserted that he’s a huge asshole. While many people have had their stories about him handwaved away, eventually there were just too many accounts to ignore. Also his cut of Justice League was a box office flop by superhero movie standards.
By the time the Snyder cut came out, he hadn’t been attached to any major studio projects in four months. At best it didn’t help, but the damage was done.
Oh I completely agree and my argument that Snyder Cut somehow instantly destroyed his career.I’ll adjust and expand my claim as follows. While at that point Whedon had been cast down due to personal reasons, there was still that professional capability to his image. Even with the Justice League movie being a flop, there was still this room to defend him as it was a doomed project to begin with and there was a lot of the failings of the film that were forced on Snyder, fairly or unfairly.However, when the Snyder Cut got released, suddenly the affect Whedon had on the film was no longer hypothetical, instead the changes he made to scenes were there to see and analyze with none of them making him look good. The other addition I would make is The Nevers that got a mixed response, personal admission I really didn’t like the show and the narrative choices it made. I would argue both of those happening at the same time were damaging as now even his creative genius was suddenly up to debate in a manner it wasn’t when discussing his behaviour.
It might not be a full #MeTooing, but it’s definitely #MeToo adjacent.
I think ‘MeToo adjacent’ is the best way to put it. Having sex with people who you employ is some sort of misconduct – but none of those people are coming forward and saying that the did it because he promised them benefits or threatened them with consequences if they didn’t. Everyone who has claimed some sort of negative effect from his misconduct is peripherally involved (Like his ex-wife obviously, or the writer who he would make out in front of). He definitely threatened people’s careers, but so far we’ve only heard about him making those threats over professional disagreements.Even the part where it seems like he’s enticing someone over so he can whip his dick out and block the door until she touches it, doesn’t go that way.
Erin Shade, a television writer who moonlights as a psychic medium, got involved with Whedon in 2013 while working as a showrunner’s assistant on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., a series he created with one of his younger half-brothers and the brother’s wife. He was 49; she was 23 and a virgin. One day, Whedon texted her with an unusual request: Would she come over to his house for the weekend to watch him write? He would pay $2,500 — more than Shade made in a month as an assistant. There was one caveat: She had to hide it from her bosses. They dated on and off in secret for nearly a year before she slept with him. Not long after, he sent her a brief email telling her he couldn’t have a girlfriend. It’s like the sex itself was fine…he was just using it to set her up to emotionally hurt her. It really seems like he’s an emotional predator, and the sex is just sort of a means to manipulate people. We just don’t really have any sort of framework for handling someone who strictly sets out to emotionally harm people like that, in the same way that we do for people who are physically or sexually abusive. So we’re left kind of trying to smush him into those frameworks.
Yeah that whole story about Shade grossed me out. I watched her YouTube explainer of what happened and I don’t want to take away her agency (for the most part, she doesn’t seem like she was upset about the affair), but c’mon, Whedon. A 49-year old man going after a virgin in her early twenties is creepy. I know there’s always someone who wants to escalate things to “Well she’s legal so it wasn’t a crime and he didn’t rape her, blah, blah, blah” so to head that off, yeah, creepiness isn’t illegal. But if I had a 49-year old friend who tried that, I’d talk their ear off about it.I think you’re spot-on about him being an emotional abuser and needing a framework for that, because that’s a disturbingly common behavior. There are a few stories of celebrities like that (Fred Armisen comes to mind) and I think it just exposes how there’s a gap in society where we don’t really talk about that. Maybe the first step is blasting the message, “Hey, that shit isn’t okay.”
It’s the seeming why of Whedon’s dating of Shade that really makes it creepy. Like, a 49 year old and a 23 year old…yeah, it’s kind of a mix of gross and enviable – 23 year olds don’t stop being sexually appealing even if they don’t have much to offer in partnership aside from that (just ask Leonardo DeCaprio, or quite a few other wealthy and famous men). I’d definitely judge, if it were someone I knew…but I’d also be a little jealous.But if his purpose was ‘No, I’m not just dating her for sex. We’re not having sex. I’m going to get her attracted to me, attached to me, get her to have sex with me, and then I’m going to dump her immediately afterwards!’* I would probably quit being friends with him. That’s like a character in a Neil LaBute play. It’s purely sadistic.Emotional abuse is hard to catch onto, I think, just because hurting other people’s feelings is something everyone does – even if we’re not setting out to do it. It just sort of happens as a byproduct of living our lives, even if we try to avoid doing it. In the adult world we probably aren’t hitting people, or raping people, or spitting in their faces, or groping them, etc. Physical and sexual abuse is fairly easy not to perpetrate…just, don’t do it. But one way or another, we inevitably are going to step on people’s toes, or worse. It’s just not something that most people weaponize, let alone treat as sport/recreation. So when we find someone who does, it’s hard to really get a handle on it.*Edit: Know what this sounds like? The DENNIS system from ‘It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia’. The system that a psychopath set up to manipulate women into sex and then ensure that they were too damaged to get into a meaningful relationship afterwards. I might not be successful, but I want to think of a similar backronym to make the JOSS system to fit Whedon’s MO.
Eh, while discussing Joss’ behavior on set is fair game, its not fair to compare the Snyder cut to Whedon’s JL. Give Snyder the same restriction to keep the runtime under 2 hours and let me know how his final product compares to Whedon’s.
Pretty much this. Say what you will about Whedon, yeah, he’s a total asshole, whatever, no argument there. But he was basically parachuted in to an near-finished film (or at least a fairly substantially complete one) that someone else started and given the brief of not only completing it more-or-less on budget and on time, but giving it a complete 180 tonal shift in the process while at the same time cutting it down to just over two hours from whatever ungodly length it was going to be and having to juggle a cast who pretty much didn’t want him to be there (the latter being in large part his own fault, admittedly). You give Orson Welles that brief it’s still going to be nothing short of a miracle that the end result isn’t complete shit, and Whedon ain’t no Orson Welles.Snyder, on the other hand, was given two extra hours, however many extra billions, the freedom to basically do whatever he wanted, the ability to work with his own ideas, scripts and footage rather than having to work around someone else’s, and about two years of criticism and hindsight to absorb, not to mention a loud fanbase who’d weren’t exactly shy about bullying their way into getting what they wanted. For all Whedon’s a shitheel it’s not a fair comparison at all, and acting like it is seems kind of disingenuous.
Except that is not at all the point. Don’t know why you think it is. Of course the 4 hour version cannot be directly compared as a whole to the 2 hour version, which is redundant to even state.
Yes, the Whedon version was 2 hours. However, during those reshoots, they changed a lot of scenes in a way which had nothing to do in reducing the run time and actually added stuff that wasn’t in the original version. When you compare the scenes as they are between the two versions, that’s where to problem for Whedon rises.To give you an example, the graveyard scene. I’ve seen it often raised on this very site as a bad scene in the Whedon version with the explicit statement that it was clearly a Snyder scene. Except it wasn’t as in the Snyder Cut the graveyard scene is completely different, which means that in the theater cut it was all Whedon. The scene is about as long in both versions and the changes are connected to the general mood of the film rather than allowing the theater version to condense some other parts.
I mean unfortunately there no such thing as bad press, if his name keeps popping up he’ll be back in before you know it. That seems to be the way its gone so far for everybody else who did the “one year dip” from the public eye.
I suspect that some of that can be attributed to the fact that Joss is a third-generation screenwriter. He grew up in an industry that traditionally has bent over backwards to protect people like him from those who would hold them accountable. He legitimately might not expect any long-term consequences from this, and is likely too egotistical to let anyone bring in a PR consultant to hold his hand through this. But that’s just a guess on my part.
Please don’t take this as approval of Whedon’s BS, but at this point, what has he got to lose? I mean, what Roman Polanski did was worse than anything Joss Whedon has done, and yet there are plenty of people who-really-should-know-better ready to go to the fucking mattresses for Polanski. Same for Woody Allen. Whedon keeps his name out there, hopes for the day when cultural taste makers decide enough is enough, and then the New York Times will do an article on his triumphant return.And is that such an irrational strategy? It’s shitty. It’s evil. But is it irrational? The Time’s Up Organization fell apart because it turned out, surprise surprise, they were really awful to women! So forgive me if I am a bit skeptical.The entertainment industry talks a big game. I believe Ray Fisher and Charisma Carpenter. But the second a studio decides Joss Whedon can make them some money, he’ll be back. And when that happens, it’ll be all our faults for “living in the past” and “not offering grace” to someone who’s paid their debt.
The thing about Woody Allen and Roman Polanski is that they kept working. And their work was good enough that people kept purposefully overlooking their sins, whereas Joss Whedon seems to have burned the goodwill from The Avengers with Age of Ultron and the theatrical version of Justice League. And that was six years ago. Even accounting for working on The Nevers (which he “split ways with”), that’s a long dry spell. Hollywood is a notoriously “what have you done lately?” business, and while I think that yes, Whedon can come back, first he has shut the fuck up.
It was pretty weird, and you’d think that a guy who clearly has a love and extensive command of language would have been able to understand how badly those answers make him come off. Self-aggrandizing, self-victimizing, blame-shifting and accepting almost zero responsibility. He’s like one of his own villains.
Wait, are you saying Joss is Glory?
He doesn’t have an extensive command of language, speaking and writing are entirely different skills, and he gets far more credit than he deserves for his writing anyway
It seemed pretty telling that Fisher was the only person who he was willing to just straight-up accuse of lying, and I suspect that’s because he’s well aware how badly saying a bunch of women are lying would come off, so he instead reserved it for the one man in the mix.
Thinking back, something I realized made the article have such a weird tone is that Whedon’s answers were constantly so absurd that the writer herself didn’t really know what to do with them. I think that was entirely deliberate on the part of the interviewer, and the juxtaposition between even the most neutral, ‘charitable’ presentation of the allegations and Whedon’s responses underline that he is an arrogant, unrepentant asshole incapable of admitting fault, dismissive and cruel even as he’s dismissing criticisms of his cruelty. The framing, choice and quotations reinforce his fragility and ego, like yeah this is exactly the kind of guy who would abuse his power.
The impression I get from the piece is that Whedon is so accustomed to being surrounded by sycophants and superfans that he has no idea that he’s talking to an unfriendly audience. He sounds insane because he’s way too unguarded for the situation—he’s talking the way someone talks to sympathetic friends. If you read it from the POV of someone who’s willing to give his words the most generous interpretation, you come away with a portrait of Whedon as a flawed but decent-hearted, misunderstood patriarch—like John Houseman in The Paper Chase, basically, the tough-but-fair teacher you hate but in retrospect admire for challenging you like the nice profs never did. Everything he says comes from this mistaken assumption. He would never have agreed to the interview if he had any real comprehension of how much his reputation has declined since his Buffy/Angel glory days.
It’s so tone deaf that I’m not sure if he honestly thought it would help rehabilitate his image or if he’s just decided to go fuck it and say whatever is on his mind, safe in the relative freedom of knowing that his career as a major studio darling is over.
Your explanation makes some sense, but I have to believe he’s at least noticed that his pool of sycophants has shrunk significantly and he has no major work lined up.
I think Whedon was expecting more of a Vanity Fair type article, where his words would have been wrapped in obsequious puffery. He would have likely still come off unsympathetically, but at least his genius would have been fluffed. I doubt he thought Lila Shapiro, a longtime fan, would present his words so damningly clinically.
I kept wondering, does Whedon have a PR person to help with stuff like this? because I feel like a *good* PR person would bodily prevent him from doing something like this (especially the subtle, passive-aggressive digs at his two accusers; such a bad look). Take all your Avengers money and take a year off on some island and then come back quietly and make another blockbuster.
To me, Whedon’s answers gave me the impression of a guy who’s been replaying certain interactions over and over again until they slowly morph into something that makes sense to him. Like, he goes back in his head to the fight with Gal Gadot, and he’s sure he can’t have done anything wrong because he’s such a nice showrunner, so he reworks it until it occurs to him, “She has an accent! Of course! She has trouble with English!” And I think he genuinely believes that, so he can say it confidently to a reporter, not realising how deluded he sounds.
“See, I said “she would have to tie me to a railroad track and do it over my dead body, ” right? There’s no threat to her, if anything it’s a threat to… myself, huh? I mean, that’s just English, right?”
It got even better after that because then there had been someone else that told him that apparently he had also said something about tying Gadot to the railroad tracks. But he didn’t remember it, just that someone said so. Like seriously, what the hell was that answer?
I think he thinks that being pretentious is an excuse. It is not. Excellent points btw on Joss’s answers, he do doth protest to much.
The writer seemed to be firmly in Whedon’s corner, hence why they never confronted any of his answers, and instead threw out potshots directed Snyder. Saying he made Nazi propaganda films, pushed the theory that Snyder was manipulating Fisher into speaking out against Whedon and the impossibility that people turned their backs on Whedon, and celebrated Snyder for being a decent human being etc…
The fact that anyone could read this article, in which Whedon is given so much rope to hang himself that you get the sense that the writer has to keep going back to a truck to fetch more rope, and come away with it arguing that it’s a hit-piece against Snyder simply because it also briefly suggests that Snyder himself maybe ain’t God’s gift to filmmaking is an… interesting take on the material. Not least because the only person who pushes the “Snyder used Fisher to set Whedon up!” theory is Whedon himself.
After so many years of Trump I would think we would all be familiar by now how narcissistic people can both want to be liked and be completely incapable of mounting a good defense
It’s kind of like watching the first two-thirds of The Last Duel, where you just want to say to those guys “You really think this is the version of the story that makes you look good, huh?”
So they sent each other fart noises?That is the basic equivalent.Yawn.
Ah, my favorite kind of comment–the disinterested yawn from a person who is clearly very, very interested. Love it.
Oh I am interested, clearly, hence why I commented. Are you not aware of this thing works? I enjoy every time Ray Fisher opens his mouth to say (*checks notes)…..well, nothing usually. The yawn was clearly for the non story of these 2 “actors” sending each other the equivalent of fart noises. But thank god your here to put me in my place. Congrats, your medal is in the mail. #Istandwithfartnoises
Ok racist
Coming from you that is nearly a compliment. Also, that’s a pretty big leap. Asshole sure, but racist? Because I find an actor crying over bs that is luke warm at best? Terrific. The 21st century everyone.Sure, if I’m a racist then you’re a cunt. Agreed? Perfect.
I hope the 21st century gets so much worse for you
Good news! I got a raise! 21st century rolls on for Keego 94!I heard you got rolled up and smoked in that Awk article by the commentariat. That’s gotta hurt, seeing as your so beloved around here…
Man, your butt got so burnt by my comments that you had to roll up here and be defensive about your racism three weeks later? Sad.
Wow, you talk like a Trumper now? (Sad). Looks like the façade slipped. Where were YOU on Jan. 6th?But nah, I just enjoyed seeing you get smoked and fucked in that Awk thread (Nice way to spend your Saturday, loser) so I figured I’d come back here and reminisce.
Keep up the great work, cunt.
Stay mad racist
Stay cunty, cunt.
I’m just still laughing that I got so under your skin that you had to come back here a month later to piss and moan at me. Also nice use of misogynist slur.
Defending your interest in something that you find boring is a hilarious self-own.
I find his constant non specific accusations boring.I also find your response boring. Do better.
Ask him where he was January 6th 2021.
The barrier to leaving a quick internet comment is extremely low. They aren’t proof of any level of care, promise.
Guys like Keego94 are an example of the execs and staff that keep guys like Whedon in business. Whedon isn’t being hurt by this at all and will be back in business next week. Also, WTF is a ‘Joss’?
Well, it’s not quite a Josh and it’s not quite a tosser, but man, hahahahaha … so to answer your question, I don’t know.
But, Unspeakable Axe, they typed “Yawn”. They opened up the comment function and hit the keys to write “yawn”, the word for boredom! They’ve made their non-caringness clear for all to see!
So you consider human beings expressing empathy and kindness to be the equivalent of a fart noise? Yeah, that checks out. Based on your other comments here I’m guessing you’ve never managed to achieve basic human decency, let alone a sincere positive emotion for another.
I wonder, in a decades time, if Joss Whedon will look back at making Justice League or the Vulture interview as the biggest mistake of his career. On one hand, I have to admire that he refused to get a publicist or PR firm’s help to work on his message before giving the interview but, on the other hand, what he is saying is so tone deaf, that I can barely believe that this is the same man who so cannily made products that millions of people love.
Personally, I am more outraged by the #MeToo stuff than I am by the whole “Joss Whedon is a giant asshole” narrative. Most of my bosses were assholes and I wasn’t getting paid hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars, to do it.
I also am not shocked that Joss Whedon didn’t feel like listening to Ray Fisher and Gal Gadot about story input. I remember a NY Times profile from a decade ago where Whedon stamped hard on some subordinate (I think it was a special effects guy) who dared to suggest a line for Captain America to say. Whedon isn’t a “let’s improv and feel out your character” guy but a “say it as I wrote it” type. I don’t think that was ever unknown or a crime.
BUT I remain absolutely appalled that he used his position to fuck women who were dependent on him for a job and his replies to said activity was so fucking gross that I just can’t take it.
It’s one of those weird situations where the actual instigating incident—Whedon being a dick to his actors after replacing someone they really got along with—wasn’t that bad*, but it was enough to break the dam regarding all of his other instances of shitty, predatory behavior.*In the sense that it’s definitely bad, but stories about tyrannical directors are a dime a dozen, and in isolation it probably would have been survivable, career-wise.
one thing I would disagree with—he really should have retained a good PR person with this. His unwillingness to get a PR person reeks of an extremely ill-advised ego trip and nothing more; it didn’t come from an “admirable” place. It’s like watching Alec Baldwin continue to run his mouth “defending himself” from the Rust shooting because his massive ego can’t process that he would be criticized or faulted for something. Both these guys should have shut the fuck up and let the news cycle push them to the bottom of the list in a month or so.
He was probably worried that a PR firm wouldn’t be able to understand his “flowery” language and they’d get the message all wrong.
I think you absolutely nailed it. If actors and directors want to fight about moviemaking, then meh. Who cares? But if a male director is systematically harassing / grooming / intimidating his female actors, then yuck and illegal.
I remember an interview or an audio commentary where Whedon was saying he didn’t let actors improv on ‘Firefly’; they had to read the words as written. At the time I thought it was kind of weird, because I’ve heard so many creators speak really positively of letting actors improv and how it improves the finished product. Now, with everything that’s come out, it sounds more like the edict of a raging narcissist who can’t abide having his genius questioned.And as to your last point – 100%. Fighting with actors, fostering a toxic work environment, throwing his weight around, these are all terrible actions but somewhat understandable for someone working in a high-pressure environment, and I could forgive him those if he seemed really contrite. But his wielding of power to get sex, and his seemingly unrepentant attitude to it, is deeply heinous.
I haven’t listened to any of the Firefly DVD commentaries, but I read that one of them mentions that the actors were encouraged to interrupt and talk over the other to sound more natural.
Well, there are other showrunners with a writing-first, no-improv creative style that apparently aren’t raging assholes. Vince Gilligan’s shows, for instance, seem to be characterized by mature professionalism and cheerful collaboration, but his actors have made it pretty clear that part of that professional collaboration entails carefully rehearsing their lines and performing them exactly as written. It’s just a different model of showrunning from a freewheeling, improv-friendly set, and both models have produced some very fine results.What strikes me about Whedon, though, is that he didn’t even reap the benefits of being a demanding writing-first showrunner. The advantages of that style is the control it gives you over the fine details of your storytelling. You can craft carefully tuned character arcs that develop gradually from episode to episode; you can create motifs and metaphors that play out across whole seasons. (Probably the best example of a writing-first series is Mad Men—a series whose showrunner, Matt Weiner, was also allegedly a raging egomaniac and a sex pest, but he also created the closest thing to an auteur piece that’s possible in a form as collaborative as series TV.) Whedon’s series are . . . not that. They’re wildly inconsistent, sometimes fantastic and sometimes terrible, and often filled with good ideas that go nowhere and bad ideas that are run into the ground. What’s the point of being a hardass about respecting the scripts if you’re not even taking care to ensure that the scripts are worthy of such respect?
I hate that Weiner turned out to be a prick, but I often console myself with the knowledge that a lot of other writers worked on ‘Mad Men’, including some deeply talented women. And even there, I heard Weiner was open to listening to the ideas of others; one story I read was that he had no idea at first that Don and Megan were going to break up, until the other writers pointed out that it was basically inevitable given what had already been written. A truly intractable showrunner could have said, “Nope, I want them together, I don’t care what you say”, but Weiner was convinced by his collaborators.
Yeah, Weiner’s assholishness seems much more specific than Whedon’s all-too-typical brand of “Fuck hot starlets and yell at underlings” egomania. Weiner is receptive to other people’s good ideas and gracious about sharing credit, but he’s apparently just awful to people when he thinks they’re taking credit for his work.
Just the fact that Weiner insisted on putting his name on his writers’ scripts when he rewrote them is pretty obnoxious. Everyone in the business knows the showrunner is entitled to a rewrite pass on every episode as a matter of course, so it’s not like people would otherwise assume he had nothing to do with the scripts his name wasn’t on. And for every script he put his name on, he was entitled to a portion of the script payments, so he was actually taking money out of his writers’ pockets.And that possessiveness seems to have festered into something even uglier where Kater Gordon was concerned, where he apparently resented having to share an Emmy with her, and subsequently belittled and harassed her, making her question her ability as a writer and basically driving her out of the business.
From memory, Weiner didn’t even think that Peggy and that guy she worked with (I forget his name) would ever be a couple. Despite them having great chemistry for four seasons and being a beloved fan favourite pairing. In the series finale, Weiner finally saw that and let them hook up. So yeah, Weiner was an auteur, but he definitely adjusted some things based on what his actors and other writers were doing.
That would be Stan, lord of the beard.
Most actors can’t improvise or generate anything useful. Time is money. It isn’t narcissism not to want to play actor’s workshop when dozens of people are standing around wanting to be on schedule.
I don’t know that I’d agree with that. Heath Ledger improvised the scene of the Joker clapping to Gordon’s promotion in ‘The Dark Knight’, and that got put in the trailer. Rutger Hauer trimmed an overly wordy monologue into the “tears in rain” speech, which is one of the most iconic in sci-fi cinema. Richard Gere improvised snapping the jewellery box closed on Julia Roberts’ fingers in ‘Pretty Woman’, probably the most well-remembered bit of that film; likewise Gregory Peck came up with the bit where he pretends his hand has been bitten off by “the Mouth of Truth” in ‘Roman Holiday’. And so on. Good directors realise the value of letting actors play around because it can lead to gold.
I think the justice league reshoots were just a perfect storm of bullshit. They had no time to adjust things, and Whedon was never going to let it happen. So yeah, I don’t really feel bad if Fisher was ignored by his director, because they were trying to race that Frankenstein movie out on an absurd deadline.
Maybe it’s just me, but I would think betraying your wife and destroying other people would be the biggest mistake.
Whedon called Fisher a “bad actor”I mean, everyone’s welcome to their opinion, but I doubt this “Whedon” fella has seen Fisher in anything else. From what I’ve seen, he was certainly good enough in season 3 of True Detective.But apparently, he’s not so great that he can save lackluster writing or uninspired direction, as Justice League proved.
Really, every actor in Justice League seems 40-50% worse than they are in just about any other movie. Fisher ironically gives one of the better performances IMO. He’s the only one who doesn’t look completely checked out.
The palpable boredom of Batfleck is truly a sight to behold.
I swear there are scenes where you can see Affleck consider what to have for dinner after shooting wraps for the day.
The man was going through hell throughout both sets of justice league shoots. Even in the Snyder footage, Affleck just looks like he wants to leave. Considering half his dialogue is variations on “mother box” I have zero surprise that he left the role immediately after
“He’s the only one who doesn’t look completely checked out.”
Yeah, he’s the whiny emo baby boy who cries because he’s a god.
I only saw the four hour Zack Snyder Justice League and I enjoyed it. I didn’t even realize who Ray Fisher was til just now, I looked him up. He was great as Cyborg. I just didn’t put two and two together, but now I do recognize him from JL and True Detective. Fuck Joss Whedon.
Yeah, the more I think about it, the more it bothers me how incredibly petty Whedon was to slam Fisher like that. Completely unnecessary and tells you everything about the truth of the allegations against him.
I remember watching the original ‘JL’ on Netflix before all this stuff came out – man, I was bored that weekend – and I was genuinely impressed with how much Fisher was able to wring out of such a nothing part. When Cyborg’s calling out his dad, there’s some affectingly understated acting going on there.
I agree. A lot about the character and how his storyline is presented didn’t work for me, but I thought Fisher gave the role 100%.
This. And whether you are watching the Whedon cut or the Snyder cut the movie is bad.
“I mean, everyone’s welcome to their opinion, but I doubt this “Whedon” fella has seen Fisher in anything else.”
I wonder if Whedon was basing his comments on the movie he was editing in which Ray Fisher was acting?
I mean seriously, what makes you think True Detective has any place in this conversation? OBVIOUSLY Whedon was talking about his acting in relation to why his role was cut.
For Joss to treat the women of Buffy and Angel the way he did, when they were the life blood of both shows (pardon the pun).
Charisma got such a shitty hand dealt to her in Angel. If someone of Joss’ supposed talent couldn’t figure out how to shoot around her pregnancy, and ended up with that cluster fuck of a season, maybe he doesn’t deserve all the accolades he thinks he does.
The treatment of Charisma certainly puts this scene in a new light.
What they did to that character was deeply shitty, and the show suffered from losing Cordelian. Cordelia was the heart of Angel, and Charisma and David had way more realistic chemistry together on-screen than Sarah and David did.
The show still had Fred.Amy Acker is best Joss Whedon waifu.
In all “fairness,” Joss is the type who played favorites. Apparently he was really good to Allyson Hannigan and Sarah Michelle Gellar and others to the point where Anthony Stewart Head didn’t see any of his worst behavior
They cut out the part where he called him a virgin who can’t drive.
I mean…who would’ve been good enough to save that dreck ? This is the franchise that sucked the life out of notably good actresses Amy Adams and Diane Lane for pete’s sake no way any of the other b quality actors were gonna pull off anymore than they did.
Loathe as I am to compliment Zach Snyder, because I do hate his films, I’ll give him props for his casting. Nearly everyone in ‘Watchmen’, barring Malin Akerman, was a great choice. Henry Cavill is still an excellent Superman waiting for the writing to reach his level. And the trend continues with Ray Fisher; it’s not a good role, at least not in the 2017 cut, but the guy gets everything he can out of it.
WB’s ongoing refusal to bring Cavill back as Superman just out of spite will remain one of the pettiest moves ever in Hollywood. The actor is willing, the actor is a big enough name and still rising, the audience isn’t opposed to it, what’s the holdup?Fisher is fantastic in the Snyder version, if you haven’t given it a try. One thing that’s often overlooked is the physicality he brought into the role. It’s easy to forget he was basically wearing a mocap pajamas on set, because in some scenes he really sold the weight of all that alien robotic stuff.
This may sound odd as they’re two completely different characters, but Cavill’s work as Geralt in ‘The Witcher’ series convinces me he could do great work as Superman given a good script. As Geralt, he conveys a sincere sense of moral weight, like he truly is aware that his actions have consequences and so he’s responsible for choosing the path that will do the most good, or more often the least harm. That’s a great trait to bring to a portrayal of the Big Blue Boy Scout.
I personally thought he conveyed those values even in Snyder’s movies. I get that people might not like the story and events in the movies, but Cavill’s acting has always been on point as Supes even with few dialogues.
Nearly everyone in ‘Watchmen’, barring Malin Akerman, was a great choice. I definitely disagree with that. Matthew Goode was a bad choice to play Ozy. In the comics Ozymandias gives off this wholesome All-American vibe that contrasts with the reveal of his villainy. By putting an effete Englishman in the role Snyder’s basically telegraphing the story’s big reveal.There are some good choices, though. Patrick Wilson as a nebbish Night Owl was fine, maybe because in the original he’s such a sad sack.
#IJustWantTo#EverySentence#IGuessToIllustrateAPoint#SeemsUnnecessaryButHereWeAre#Hashtag#Meta
#KneelBefore#s
Boomer is angrier about hashtags than misogyny. Very on brand for you though.
Thank you for noticing. I believe consistency is an overlooked & underappreciated character trait, and I do try to be cognizant of that.
Yes, you’re consistently shitty and dismissive with regards to discussions of women being assaulted and harassed. Bully for you.
Speaking of consistency, kudos for never wavering in your performative outrage of the imaginary slights of other commentators that you are so sure exist. Never give up. Someday, I’m sure you’ll make a difference.
Again, it’s hilarious how revealing these answers are. Thanks for confirming you only believe people care about women’s autonomy for “performative” reasons and that efforts to prevent women from being harassed or assaulted can’t make any difference. The reason you believe that is your own refusal to care about women in any meaningful way other than what potential pleasure they can provide to you.
Never said or implied the bit about “people care.” I said you yourself are performative. Even your name demands that we give you…wait for it…’recognitions’ for your performance.Thus, I am giving recognitions for your performance. Ergo, ‘kudos’.
Said the guy whose username reeks of overcompensation and arrested development in childhood fantasy. But again, the only way you’re able to attack is to insist that people who disagree with you care as little for women’s autonomy as you do. Telling on yourself once again.
I don’t have a dog in this here fight.“A bad actor in both senses” is a pretty good dig.
You should probably have a dog in this fight. Saying the opposite says a lot about you.
Americans need over the top violence, racism and sexism to believe anyone on anything these days. People want to see burning crosses and blood soaked, brutalized women screaming for help to before they even consider someone else’s plight. Saying, “This guy who has power and authority, was verbally and emotionally abusive and made working traumatic” for some reason isn’t enough to warrant any disciplinary action.
What do you want “Americans” to do? He’s getting his due in the media, his name is mud in the fandom world, his career is going to take a major hit— what exactly do you want to happen beyond that? Keeping in mind there are 330 million of us and 300 million of those probably don’t even know who he is.
He’ll be fine and working on another project in no time. That’s how it goes.
That’s not actually an American specific thing. I can attest that people in Australia are also reluctant to believe bad things about their heroes (particularly sporting) without evidence of extreme misbehaviour, and from what I’ve witnessed as an outsider I’d say it’s the same in the UK. Can’t speak for any other countries.
Do you really think this is an American thing? Celebrities are protected everywhere. Look up some of the stories with Bollywood actors. French production companies continue to allow Roman Polanski to make new films. Celebrities are protected everywhere.
Hallmark’s going to have to make a card for this kind of thing.
Total non sequitur, but back when we lived in Kansas City, one of my sons dated one of the Hall kids. She was just the nicest young woman.
I’d be nice too if my family was so wealthy off of something as pointless as greeting cards.
Right. Cause nobody can just be a nice person because that’s their nature.
In my experience.
I posted this on another article about Whedon, but I think it bears repeating.
Whedon has almost all of the general traits of Narcissistic Personality Disorder as laid out by DSM-V. Four through nine alone are slam dunks.
1. Grandiose sense of self-importance.
2. Fantasies of unlimited success.
3. A belief that they are special and should only associate with other high-level institutions.
4. Need for excessive admiration.
5. A sense of entitlement.
6. Interpersonally exploitative.
7. Lack of empathy.
8. Envy of others or belief that others envy them.
9. Demonstration of arrogance or haughty behavior.
Whedon hates it when anyone questions him for any reason. He’ll rail endlessly against actors or filmmakers that try to change his lines, or “not read them as intended.” In his mind, everyone should just shut up and listen to him because, in his view, he’s right and only he can do this.
He’s also, for lack of a better word, bitchy. How long has he been trashing Donald Sutherland? Or Halle Berry? Or the crew of Alien Resurrection?
How the hell can he do an apology tour when, in his eyes, he hasn’t done anything wrong? They teed him up with an easy hit, and he couldn’t resist getting in a dig at Ray or Godot. He can’t change because he’s mentally incapable of understanding what he’s done.
1-5 are pretty redundant.
Requisites for leadership these days, it seems…
Not to be flip, but I kind of love the word “haughty” in there amongst the more clinical language. It’s just such a quaint term. It makes me imagine Whedon in a top hat with a cane, wrinkling his nose as a poor person walks past.
It would fit in with all his “flowery language”.
Oh Whedon is a textbook narcissist, although a covert one which is why he got by with it for so long. If he’d never been a public figure, he’d probably still be getting by with it.
I am not defending Whedon but it didn’t help that his fans gushed over him for years. He had several successful shows and he was told over and over that his unsuccessful shows failed because of the network and not because of him. He also, arguable, is one of the fathers of the biggest movie franchise in the world, possible of all times, even if he left/got kicked to the curb after his second film in the series was not well received. I feel like a lot of this guys problems were on the page a long time ago we just ignored it because we liked his stuff. I am still a fan of his work and have divorced the art from the artist in my mind but I am glad he seems to have stopped working in Hollywood these days
I still really like the shows, and I can live with that because it took hundreds of people to make Buffy, Angel, Firefly, Dollhouse (even the first episode of Agents of SHIELD,) but apparently he was a fucking asshole through the whole thing. That’s almost more impressive.
It was legit painful to read that interview.
Ray Fisher still is still a thing? Waiting for the 10 year follow up, where are they now doc.
He said Fisher was a bad actor in all senses of the term that is a bad person and a bad actor. And Whedon’s version whatever you think of its artistic merit made $600 million more than Snyder’s.
The Vulture piece is littered with sign of Whedon being awful, but for me the “bad actor” line sticks out as a particular dick move. This is meant to be Whedon setting the record straight and telling us how he’s “one of the nicer showrunners out there”, and yet he can’t resist the urge to make a snarky quip about Fisher’s acting abilities, even though that’s irrelevant to the accusations made. Yeah Joss, that totally convinces me you wouldn’t foster a toxic work environment.
I got the impression that he figured he could come down harder on the one man who’s made these kinds of accusations; note that Fisher is also the only one who he says is just lying rather than trying to make excuses for why they could genuinely believe what they’re accusing him of.
I haven’t seen anything with Ray Fisher, but how bad can he be at acting? Surely not worse than David Boreanaz, who Whedon wrote a whole series for.
David Boreanaz is a way better actor than Ray Fisher.
Just want to reiterate that the Vulture profile itself not taking a definitive stance on Whedon is problematic. Look, I get it, “How can one read that interview and think the profile is trying to defend or redeem Whedon?”, and “the interviewer just gave him the rope and let him do the hanging himself”, and all that. But as we’ve come to learn again and again, that’s bullshit. Take a firm stance and condemn. Don’t let him have the last word on this.
The article isn’t an opinion piece. It’s actual reporting, which isn’t supposed to take a firm stance. And frankly she didn’t have to. The facts (including Whedon’s own words) loudly speak for themself.
Agreed. Also, by taking a neutral stance, the author and the publication can’t be accused of putting out a “hit piece” or being too soft. I think the vast majority of people who read this are able to see that Whedon didn’t need any help assassinating his own character. Besides, we’re getting PLENTY of editorial pieces in response. If you want to read something with a strong opinion, read one of those.
Sorry, but I find that a weak excuse. It’s a profile, not a “reporting”. It’s giving Whedon a chance to have a word in.Take, for instance, the “Zack Snyder conspired to manipulate Ray Fisher to rally against Whedon” theory that was raised in the article. That’s more than enough to further reinforces the doubts of those who have chosen not to believe the accusations in the first place.Again, this kind of shit is why it’s easy for these assholes to get away with these awful stuff for so long.
On the flipside, though, how’s Whedon “getting away” with anything as a result of this article? Who is giving him the last word? Literally where is that even happening? While I won’t pretend my experience is universal, almost every piece of commentary on this interview I’ve seen — and what appears to be the overwhelming majority of the response thus far — has revolved around what a massive wanker incapable of reading the room (at best) or raving lunatic collapsing into a black hole of narcissistic delusion (at worst) he comes off as in this interview. While I won’t try and argue that no one anywhere ever would try to defend Whedon, the people actually using anything from this article to do so appear quite thin on the ground (most of them just seem to be ignoring or dismissing it, and I suspect most of them would probably have latched on to any excuse to do so, even if the author had made a point of including the sentence “by the way, Joss Whedon is bad and you should think he’s bad, just in case you don’t get it” multiple times in every paragraph). And certainly the argument that this article is going to backfire and enable Whedon to come out on top smelling of roses having successfully controlled the narrative seems questionable at best from the overall response so far, in which if he is controlling the narrative it is apparently solely for the purposes of making himself look like and everyone else think that he is a creepy pretentious delusional asshole. On the whole, most people seem capable of applying critical thinking in order to get it, in this case. And also, I have to note that the only people I’ve seen remotely suggesting that this article paints or can be used to paint Whedon in even a half-positive light are also people who’ve latched onto the, like, two times Zack Snyder is mentioned in the whole article in a less-than-favourable light. Now, that might be coincidence, but considering that the only person who even suggests that ludicrous theory or that it might be true is Whedon himself, who is clearly depicted as unreliable and self-regarding, that can’t help but make me suspect that for some people (not accusing you, but perhaps for some), this is a bit less about making sure that Whedon gets what’s coming to him and more some slightly sour grapes about the fact that the author maybe doesn’t think that Zack Snyder is God’s gift to filmmaking.
The author of the profile literally wrote out one of the crazy Whedon fans theory that’s been circulating since Fisher first complained against Whedon. You’re viewing things through a vacuum. These crackpot theories people use to defend Whedon didn’t come from Whedon himself. There are still people on Twitter who champion Whedon, ranging from “Well he still made some of the most important franchises in movies and TVs, so…” to “Yeah I won’t believe this black man and these women, brah”.The fact that you’re still trying to make this about someone else other than Whedon and his overzealous defenders, and tried to put the blame on someone else with your finger-pointing. It’s gross. I shouldn’t have expected better, since some of you here on AVC have been very adamant to be lenient on Whedon since the word go.
The author of the profile literally wrote out one of the crazy Whedon fans theory that’s been circulating since Fisher first complained against Whedon.I mean, reading the article, this is just “author summarises situation”. That’s a standard part of reporting. This is part of the context that this whole situation exists in, and that is being provided to give a clear overview of the situation. You don’t have to like that these viewpoints exist, but they do, and the author mentioning them is just providing the context, it’s not propaganda. Again, this just seems like fishing for things to complain about a little here; that the author doesn’t write paragraphs and paragraphs denouncing the viewpoints she summarises is not the same as an endorsement of them. These crackpot theories people use to defend Whedon didn’t come from Whedon himself.Okay, I’ll admit I was misremembering the details here. However, reading the article back, the author summarises the pro-Whedon defences you’re complaining about in order to lead into what Whedon himself thinks about them, and you don’t have to read between the lines of his response too closely to see that he clearly believes the shit out of this theory (or at least finds it a useful defence for himself), but is for once too careful to actually say so. I was wrong, but I wasn’t a million miles off either.But this also doesn’t support your case as much as you think. The danger of this article, you have been arguing, is that it gives Whedon a voice, it gives Whedon a chance to have the last word, the chance to control the narrative. But apparently these defences are happening with or without Whedon, which — if you’ll read my post again — I never suggested otherwise. You have been arguing that this article will directly lead to these defences being raised, but apparently it isn’t; it’s merely summarising existing defences.And in any case, none of this refutes my position that, despite your claim that this article can be used to defend or exonerate Whedon, this on the whole just doesn’t seem to be happening except perhaps outside of some rarified clusters (which is unclear, since apparently they were already making the same defences you were worried they’d be making as a result of this article even before it was published). And in fact the opposite seems to be true; among the wider world Joss Whedon’s reputation seems to have been significantly more damaged than it was this time last week than if he’d just kept his mouth shut. The fact that you’re still trying to make this about someone else other than Whedon and his overzealous defenders, and tried to put the blame on someone else with your finger-pointing.And the fact that you’ve resorted to trite, over-combative and unsupported ad hominem accusations of me being a Whedon apologist simply for disagreeing with you about a Vulture article and suggesting that Zack Snyder superfans as a collective aren’t necessarily without splinters in their own eyes either only suggests further to me that I may actually have a point — especially since, if you read my post back, I made a point of excluding you personally from any accusations I made. If you read my post history on this page alone, I think you’ll find that I’ve been quite willing and happy to call Joss Whedon out as being an absolute piece of shit. But that doesn’t mean that your claim that this article can be used to defend him and let him win the narrative by having “the last word” isn’t apparently utter nonsense.
This Matt Gabriele is a piece of work. His point of view is that the public is too stupid to draw conclusions from an article, so the author should spoon-feed to them how they should feel about everything they’re reading. I hope nobody ever takes that advice, ever.I don’t want stances. I want interesting reporting, interviews, writing. I’ll then turn that into a stance, using my brain.
I still find Ray Fisher’s claims of racism to be more than a stretch and also think, even in the beloved Snyder cut, that he is a terrible actor. I think what he did to Charisma was horrible and beyond forgiveness but I would be interested in hearing the thoughts of some actors like Eliza Dushku, Felicia Day, Nathan Fillion and Amy Acker who worked with him repeatedly on different projects. Eliza was like 17 when she started on Buffy but then went on to reappear on the series and the Angel spin-off and then pitched a pilot that wasn’t picked up and then did Dollhouse. What does she think of all of this?
It’s really not cool of Joss Whedon to say what he did about Ray Fisher in public…but Ray Fisher was horrible as Cyborg. He was a flat character.
Joss Whedon is the perpetual High-School nerd who doesn’t know how to leave his juvenile behavior behind. All his actions and answers make more sense when you look at him like a guy who is stuck in the “i’m finally gonna show all those people who made fun of me in school” mindset. He feels entitled to his bad behavior because of perceived denial of things when younger.
You know the cracks really started to show with Age of Ultron. It started becoming obvious then that he was still stuck in his late 90s-early 2000s crappy mentality about women. Unfortunately the rest of the world (or a lot of it) had moved forward and grown so some of the parts of Ultron really did not read well. Whedon of course didn’t get that. Remember the snit he had when he quit twitter over the criticism, then denied that’s why he quit? I mean a lot of people (a lot of them guys) defended him in 2015 over Ultron, but it really was the beginning. Before Ultron Joss was untouchable.
Even before that – I remember the absolute toddler fit he threw over the fact that a lot of people were blanching at the “mewling quim” line in The Avengers. I’m pretty sure I remember him saying something about how FANS were the misogynist ones for thinking that line was misogynist.
Yeah I remember that but he totally got a pass on that one. It really didn’t start catching up with him until Ultron when it really became obvious how differently he was treating Black Widow from the boys club.
This sort of reminds me of Dave Chapelle. I don’t get his insistence on his transphobic jokes. They are very reminiscent of early 2000s jokes so why is he so stuck there? I would even throw Tina Fey into this category too, I finally tried watching Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and some of the jokes involving race felt like they could have been done in 2005 but in 2015?
It really feels like the people who were progressive late 90s/early 2000s are having a hard time progressing past the time where they received their highest praise. Maybe it is human nature but I wish they would all do better because a lot of their work shaped me positively in a lot of areas when I was young.
It really feels like the people who were progressive late 90s/early 2000s are having a hard time progressing past the time where they received their highest praise. That’s it exactly. They lose a necessary humility that we all need in life and that makes them lose touch. Human nature being what it is, it doesn’t surprise me. The George Carlins of the world are even rarer than we realize.
I’ve heard Carlin was a good guy, but I wouldn’t count him as an exemplar of humility: “You see, I’ve got this real moron thing I do, it’s called ‘thinking.’ And I guess I’m not a very good American, because I like to form my own opinions; I don’t just roll over when I’m told. Most Americans roll over on command. Not me.”
Even if everything Whedon says is the unvarnished truth, he would have been better off not saying anything as it all just comes across as overly defensive and, more importantly, punching down. Especially in Ray Fisher’s case as his career still seems to be barely hanging in there on life support. Joss would’ve been better off just quietly working on writing and perhaps getting published or picked up under a pseudonym until everyone’s forgotten about his various problems.
I’ve only been following these Whedon stories on a very peripheral basis, since I was never really interested in any of his work, but I was at least aware of him and the accusations.Then, while re-watching Toy Story with my son the other day, I for the first time noticed his name included in the story credits. I saw no other evidence that he was a core member of the Pixar brain trust, so I assume he was brought in as a hired gun to help touch-up the script? But man, between Katzenberg overseeing (and meddling) in the project, what we now know about John Lasseter, Steve Jobs apparently clashing with Katzenberg every step of the way, and now throwing Whedon into the mix? That must have been a surprisingly toxic movie to work on. It’s a miracle the finished product was so timelessly good.