GeekU: Joss Whedon - Feminist?

9 Comments

Comment by jim mcclure on March 18, 2009 at 12:41am

ooooo, new theme music, very 11 o'clock newsy. one little thing....Jon.....TURN OFF THE DAMNED PHONES!!!!! last podcast it was kinda funny, this time i damned near jumped out of my skin. one other minor thing, place the mic closer to the ladies, i can barely hear them if i don't want to be deaffened by the gents. i have to admit i never really noticed that theme to joss's work, but now that you mention it, it is there. but to me, in buffy, angel, and firefly/serenity it worked. but i guess thats why you folks are critics, and i'm just a nerd

Comment by Jonathan Llyr on March 18, 2009 at 7:49am

I was not in attendance at this recording.

Comment by JMFrey on March 18, 2009 at 8:18am

This recording is a bit off balance because it was originally a vidcast that had to be turned into a podcast due to technical errors. And yeah, sorry about the phones...

Comment by Phillip Wessels on March 19, 2009 at 4:50am

Don't judge Dollhouse by its cover--whether that be its la-femme-nikita-secret-organization setting (who thought cheerleader versus vampires had potential? or a rehash of the space western? or a superhero musical?), or Whedon's cynical-dramatic tendencies in his past work. You're jumping the gun. So far, Echo has not been miserable. And it's Echo, not Faith.

If you haven't noticed--which you don't seem to have--Joss's works do have less pessimistic themes as well, such as the benefits of friendship and teamwork, and while the strong females are miserable in some ways, they are still very powerful female figures, and that has intrinsic value itself.

I'm not saying your incorrect in your main point--that Joss Whedon's character development has an exhaustingly cynical tendency. I just feel the need to emphasize that this isn't black and white. His works do indeed push some positive humanistic themes as well.

Acknowledging this is especially relevant when assessing Dollhouse, because it is humanist to the core-- take charge of your life, fight the institutions, embrace learning, find yourself, etc. These are manifesting in dramatic, but ultimately positive events. Echo is doing it and we're rooting for her.

And Penny's death, while... morbid... created exactly the kind of irony that gave Dr. Horrible it's dramatic finality. Do you honestly think that Penny and Billy would have worked out anyway? Dr. Horrible getting everything he wanted is perhaps a bit too romantic.

Comment by jim mcclure on March 19, 2009 at 7:12am

dollhouse=guilty pleasure

Comment by jim mcclure on March 19, 2009 at 7:14am

and sorry jon

Comment by Ivriniel on March 20, 2009 at 10:19am

The commentator was totally wrong about Dollhouse. Echo doesn't have the weight of the world on her shoulders at all. Between inprints Echo is barely aware the world exists. Sorta torpedos your theory right there.

Comment by Miles Baker on March 24, 2009 at 12:52pm

Willow unhappy? I must have been misled by all her her smiling and joking and warmth. Xander happy? I guess losing your eye and the love of your life is pretty happy.

I think Buffy's speech in her last episode speaks to a lot of GeekU's criticisms about power, relationships and happiness. It's that she's still growing up and figuring it out. She's 22 or so at the end of the series, I sure didn't have those things figured out at 22. I'm 27 now and still don't.

You're right that no one really gets to be 100% happy in Joss Whedon's work and there's a very good reason for that: it would be boring. It would be a show without conflict. His pony does the same trick over and over again but it's a really good trick.

Also, the reason Wash dies in Serenity is because after that it seems that all bets are off. When I was watching it the first time I thought they were all going down. When Simon got shot, I thought it was the end of him, same with Kaylee, same with Zoe, even Mal. It made the situation that much more dire, and it totally worked for me.

Comment by Joe Giammarco on March 31, 2009 at 12:22pm

Karen Healey of Girl-wonder.org has commented that Whedon writes girls very well, but falls down when it comes to writing women.

Every mature, adult woman in the Whedonverse ends up broken or dead: Jenny Calendar and Joyce Summers being the most notable; and every girl who finally achieves a level of maturity and equilibrium (ie, achieves womanhood) suffers for it: Buffy dies, then longs for "heaven"; Willow loses Tara and goes over to the "dark side" of magic (btw, Tara dies); Anya dies; Cordelia suffers and dies; Darla dies; Lilah dies; Fred is warped into a demon-goddess.

I think the only reason this didn't happen on Firefly was because the show was too brief. Even so, Zoe (sadly the least developed character on the series) loses Wash. And you just know horrible things were going to happen to Kaylee and River as soon as they displayed signs of mature womanhood.

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