Joss Whedon Allegations: The Undoing of the "Buffy" Creator

[doctorbadwolf]

And there are plenty within the hip-hop/rap community who are uncomfortable with those tropes as well. It's not just suburban white guys like me.

This is the part that makes the original comment incorrect. That’s all I’ll say on the matter.

 

[Khelon Testudo]

(Slight tangent, but others have posted similar things.)

This is probably my least favorite part of any fandom/nerd-community.

I love D&D. I love a ton of fantasy and sci-fi books, shows/movies, and video games. I love consuming sci-fi and fantasy media. I love listening to music, too. There are some celebrities that I think are genuinely funny and seem nice.

I just don't get why some people feel the need to idolize them and put them on a pedestal. They're human. They make mistakes just like the rest of us. A lot of them make worse mistakes than we do. There are some creators that were absolutely garbage people, but created good things.

The "creator worship" that a lot of nerd communities and fandoms participate in is . . . baffling to me, to say the least. It's legitimately harmful to treat creators this way, even the "good ones". The ones that are legimitately decent/good people don't deserve that kind of worship, and it cannot be good for their mental health to feel that they need to live up to their fans' unrealistic expectations/viewpoint of them. It's extremely harmful when this happens with awful creators, especially those that are still alive. Celebrity worship of dead people isn't good, but doing it to alive people that are garbage people is one of the worst common practices in the modern world, IMO.

Whether it be Joss Whedon, JK Rowling, Michael Jackson, Gary Gygax, David Bowie on the bad side of things, or others that seem to be good people . . . they should not be idolized. It's bad for everyone.

Side Note: I was raised in a church where I was taught to basically worship certain alive individuals as if they weren't human people, but instead as if they were better than all of the rest of us, and to do exactly as they told us 100% of the time, even if they were wrong. Most of my family and I have since left this church (cult), but my family and I are still dealing with the fallout of this type of indoctrination, and it's extremely harmful in many ways.

No one should idolize anyone. We're all humans, none of us are gods, and it's extremely harmful to treat people as if they are "above humans". (I actually think that a major part of maturity is learning to treat others as people and not as perfect. We see our parents as perfect growing up, and a large part of the teenage years is learning that this isn't true. Those that can't learn this are a major part of what makes certain adults immature.)

Unfortunately worshiping and idolizing creators and celebrities is a very human thing to do.

 

[TheSword]

Deleted. It just isn’t worth the argument.

 

[S'mon]

From the article, it looks like there were some ongoing problems with Carpenter. She was having difficulties remembering her lines, she once got her hair cut shorter while an episode was still in production, and of course there's the tattoo. Not that this makes Whedon less of a jerk, but I do think he had some legitimate complaints about Carpenter.

When someone has anxiety, the way the boss reacts to it can make it a lot worse (going through this myself currently!). A bit of sympathy/empathy can go a long way.

 

[S'mon]

And there are plenty within the hip-hop/rap community who are uncomfortable with those tropes as well. It's not just suburban white guys like me.

I get the impression that gangsta rap became a dominant genre, and became the way it is, with the tropes it has, mostly because that's what suburban white guys liked and purchased. As opposed to the earlier black nationalism of eg NWA. It's certainly a genre rife with misogyny. I used to go to a gym (Virgin Active) and someone had switched the music channel in the men's changing rooms to a gangsta rap one. When I heard "I'm gonna strip you naked and give you to my soldiers" I complained to the front desk. The flabbergasted young woman there had no idea this was going on - and the channel was changed.

Gangsta rap tropes treat women as discardable. I don't think they have much to do with Joss Whedon, who afaict seems to have been acting out revenge fantasies against his mother.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Give a man a hole, and he is a pariah for a day. Give a man a shovel and he is a pariah for a lifetime.

 

[MGibster]

When someone has anxiety, the way the boss reacts to it can make it a lot worse (going through this myself currently!). A bit of sympathy/empathy can go a long way.

And one of the things that makes it difficult for people suffering from a mental illness or disorder is that it's not always readily apparent to others. If someone has a broken leg, it's usually obvious to the rest of us and we'll usually make accommodations for them without a second thought. But if you don't know someone has anxiety issues, their behavior can appear disruptive for no discernable reason. Someone very close to me has anxiety issues, and before I understood what the problem was it was extremely frustrating dealing with her. It's still frustrating at times but at least I understand what the problem is now and can work around it to the best of my ability.

Again, this doesn't make Whedon less of a jerk. It's just that the Carpenter situation didn't just come out of the blue and I can see how he might have gotten frustrated.

 

[Bolares]

And one of the things that makes it difficult for people suffering from a mental illness or disorder is that it's not always readily apparent to others. If someone has a broken leg, it's usually obvious to the rest of us and we'll usually make accommodations for them without a second thought. But if you don't know someone has anxiety issues, their behavior can appear disruptive for no discernable reason. Someone very close to me has anxiety issues, and before I understood what the problem was it was extremely frustrating dealing with her. It's still frustrating at times but at least I understand what the problem is now and can work around it to the best of my ability.

Again, this doesn't make Whedon less of a jerk. It's just that the Carpenter situation didn't just come out of the blue and I can see how he might have gotten frustrated.

I don't know... The victim doesn't have to be a saint. Carpenter is human, and will make mistakes and bad choices as everyone else. I don't see the point in looking at her flaws when discussing how abusive Whedon was. If Whedon was abusive it kind of doesn't matter if Carpenter's work ethic wasn't the best.

If an employee, or something similar, isn't doig what they are supposed to do you have to be professional and take the problem to the relevant people. Talk to the studio, to her manager, something like that. Nothing excuses, explains or makes what Whedon did understandable.

Bringing it back to TTRPGs, if you have a problem players you kick them from your table, you don't take a dump on their lawn.

 

[Bohandas]

For dead authors like Bradley and Lovecraft I'm not worried about the ethics of monetarily supporting them because they're dead, but it sure does change the way I read their works knowing what they were like - often to the point of not being able to read some of their works at all.

In that case you might want to avoid reading anything written more a couple hundred years ago. Especially the works of classical antiquity.

 

[Janx]

I don’t think that Buffy is still selling enough boxed sets at this point to make anyone’s living, and very few people work on just the one show, ever.

But either way, “what about the other people who make a living from the thing” isn’t a strong argument against holding creators accountable.

Besides which, no one is ever obligated to buy a particular product.

I don't disagree with holding creators accountable. But in my mind, holding people accountable means a black bag, van ride, and an isolated location. Extreme if taken literally, but a direct action aimed directly at the perpetrator.

Boycotts are drone strikes as hitmen with rifles are to assassination. Explosions take out bystanders. A good rifle takes out the man. So it is with accountability actions. Joss ain't hurting. At best he's sidelined, living comfy in his rich man's house.

Surely you prefer to hurt Joss while sparing the gaffer. Accept that some folks don't like using explosives to take out targets.