Been kind of waffling...

[Cyborg Girl]

... on whether I should post this, but I think it needs to be mentioned at some point; might as well be now.

Basically, yeah, Joss Whedon is a real asshole in person. The kind of asshole who calls himself a feminist while repeatedly cheating on his wife, and then self-pityingly manipulates said wife to keep the marriage together.

https://www.thewrap.com/joss-whedon-fem ... cole-says/

Mind you, I still think Firefly is pretty good. (In other news, Tchaikovsky fell in love with his nephew, but his symphonies are still great, right?)

However. People were raising red flags about almost every Whedon production for the longest time. Same as with Woody Allen. The artist's values and conflicts rub off on the art, even if said artist tries to keep things "apolitical", and well... this fits, doesn't it? He says he likes "strong women", but really he'd rather have married River Tam.

[code monkey]

I *loved* firefly (and serenity). enjoyed buffy. I want to not conflate the artist and his/her art although I've not been able to really enjoy Asimov after reading his crowing about winning his fight about referring to himself as 'professor asimov' and contrasting the way he wrote about wife #2 with the way he wrote about wife #1. (yes, I know that he died yrs ago. I was reading him yrs and yrs ago.) and let's not bring up wagner.

that said, I fear that the news that joss whedon was a serial philanderer and an awful person to be married to doesn't bother me or change the way I feel about his work. maybe i'm numb. maybe I define my terms differently. maybe the difference is that Asimov reveled in talking about these things in public while whedon did not.

[Rommie]

I've noticed that every person has their line between "you can love the work but hate the person" type stuff. Legality often isn't even the dividing line, else Polanski wouldn't have defenders.

I guess in this case the real difference is he was so well known for pro woman causes and the like. There is a similar pattern in my field, that serial sexual harassers are often ones who join pro woman committees and the like, and then abuse that power differential. I can only imagine show biz is even more extreme in that seeing as their power differentials are even greater.

[Cyborg Girl]

Yeah, my lines on this stuff are not always logical or sane. But I can see where Whedon would be especially hard to come back to, due to his more overt hypocrisy re subject matter.

TBH though this is not that painful for me in part because I was skeptical of Whedon for a while. Probably also helps that I've always been more a book geek than a film geek, though... I'd probably be pretty upset if something like this came out about, say, the late Iain M. Banks.

[SciFi Chick]

I really didn't want to know this. I feel physically ill now. It's not going to change my love of his work, primarily because all of his work happens with a team of people, and they shouldn't suffer because he has some kind of sex addiction.

But not cheating is one of my core values, and now I have to watch my fantasy of one day working with him crash and burn. It makes season six of Buffy make a whole lot more sense though. It also makes me understand why he fucked over Xander's character. He's always said Xander was a representation of himself. I guess we should have paid attention.

[SciFi Chick]

I have now deleted my Joss Whedon page on Facebook. Apparently, it takes 14 days for it to be completely deleted, but I wanted to announce what I've done immediately.

Y'all know I've been the biggest Joss fangirl on this site. Well, that's over. I still like the shows that I like and I'm not going to boycott his work, but I'm not going to celebrate him as a person at all.

My fantasy of working with him has been crushed into ashes.

[vendic]

Well another asshole floats to the top.
I can understand his support of the Clintons now lol

[SciFi Chick]

Well another asshole floats to the top.
I can understand his support of the Clintons now lol

While happily denouncing Trump for talking about grabbing women by the pussy. Hypocrite much?

[Cyborg Girl]

Yup. "Be wary of male feminists." A lot of them are in it for the PR and the fan approval, not the actual ideals. I have some friends myself who have really gotten screwed because of this.

In particular IMO be wary of men who somehow make it to the top in women's organizations, or straight guys who make it to the top in queer/LGBT orgs. Real allies don't care about having, you know, power in and over the group they're supposed to be defending.

BTW - sorry about this, SFC. I knew you loved his work, but didn't realize how highly you thought of him personally.

[SciFi Chick]

BTW - sorry about this, SFC. I knew you loved his work, but didn't realize how highly you thought of him personally.

If that's a sympathetic sorry, thanks. If it's an actual apology, it's not necessary. I love the truth even when it's painful. I will change my position when shown to be wrong on any subject. Politeness is always appreciated.

[vendic]

Well, let's just wait and see where this goes. There is an underlining assumption here that what one side has claimed is the absolute truth. That is rarely the case.

[code monkey]

i'm confused. unless a couple has agreed to have an open marriage (in which case it wouldn't be cheating, would it?), I disapprove of cheating. running around? call it what you will. I hope that you know what I mean. whenever I hear about some married person with work that one would think takes full attention for a long work day has been running around, one of my first thoughts is 'where does he/she get the time? or the energy?'

that said, what does fidelity to a spouse have to do with feminism? one can't be both a philanderer / creep / whatever and a feminist?

and whould we think about giving this horse a break?

[vendic]

We've been asking the same things here. We also hate cheaters.
Something doesn't sound right and there is only one source at present which is condemning him for being a poor feminist more than anything apart from stating what a strong influence she was in his career. A few other things sound strange too but its speculation. The mil raised most of these points fyi.

All the actresses he worked with have refused to comment citing they don't comment on other peoples private lives.

This has nothing to do with feminism imho.
In order to understand why it is brought up, its because he's been under fire from feminists for decades.

[SciFi Chick]

After reflecting on this, I have to say that if her accusations are true, he is the best philanderer in Hollywood history as there has never even been a rumor of him having an affair. And she claims to be getting back into architecture but she just happens to have a film coming out at the same time as this revelation - a decidedly feminist film.

[Rommie]

Yeah, I didn't have time to get into another angle earlier- I think one big issue whenever reading about someone's divorce, or their memoir of divorce or whatever, is you truly never know what's going on in someone else's relationship especially when you're only reading one side of it. Reading her thing raises my antennae, to be clear, but it's not like I'm forever taking this as gospel if that is clear.

I don't think cheating makes one a bad feminist. My concern after reading her remarks is, if it all happened as described, there was definitely taking advantage of a power differential going on in the "producer of a tv show" and "naive girl who wants a break." Two consenting parties on the same power level, I don't care, but I do think a differential like that does matter.

Does that make sense?

[code monkey]

yes, it does, rommie. but again, that would be in the context of private life.

[vendic]

It's hard to say what was going on. Power differentials are a problem but their are also women who want to climb a ladder by any means and those that like people in more powerful positions. I've had women actively pursue me and others because of that. If he acted on such an impulse then he is an ass not because of their relationship but because he failed his first commitment.
I'm not saying the power thing is not a problem, just that it's not always about a powerful man and a helpless woman. There are some pretty impressive female predators too. That industry seems to attract them regardless of sex.
I've known women who love sex and figure why not be selective so they can get further in life while doing it. Get laid and improve her career. I see it as a logical decision.
If men could do that I would have had a blast!
Unfortunately only gay men have that option. Damned gay privilege. Lol