Joss Whedon is so unbelievably sick
February 10, 2009Just read part of the Season 8 Buffy comic in the library today and I am still dry retching. EWWWWWWWWW!!!!!
EWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!
EWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!
Repeat after me kiddies: “Pornography is not fracking empowering.”
Lesbian porn for male gratification is fucking sick. Besides DYKES DO NOT LOOK LIKE THIS JOSS WHEDON YOU PERVERT!!!!
Showing teenage girls in their underwear is fucked in the head. YOU ARE A CHILD PORNOGRAPHER, JOSS!!!!
Just needed to get that off my chest.
Radfem Hub
Gorgon Poisons 
Why do you keep reading and/or watching Joss Whedon’s stuff? It seems to upset you alot.
Also, “fracking”….you watch BSG?
With No Immediate Cause
– Ntazoke Shange
every 3 minutes a woman is beaten
every five minutes a
woman is raped/every ten minutes
a little girl is molested
yet I rode the subway today
I sat next to an old man who
may have beaten his old wife
3 minutes ago or 3 days/30 years ago
he might have sodomized his daughter
but I sat there
cuz the men on the train
might beat some young women
later in the day or tomorrow
I might not shut my door fast
enough push hard enough
. . .
I sat in a restaurant with my
paper looking for the announcement
a young man served me coffee
I wondered did he pour the boiling
coffee on the woman because she was stupid
did he put the infant girl in
the coffee pot because she cried too much
what exactly did he do with hot coffee
I looked for the announcement
the discover of the dismembered
woman’s body
victims have not all been
identified today they are
naked and dead/some refuse to
testify girl out of 10 is not
coherent/ I took the coffee
and spit it up I found an
announcement/ not the woman’s
bloated body in the river floating
not the child bleeding in the
59th street corridor/ not the baby
broken on the floor/
“there is some concern
that alleged battered women
might start to murder their
husbands and lovers with no
immediate cause”
I agree with you sister, but then what do lesbians look like?
I would’ve thought they could be anyone…
The top image was supposed to be the counter-point, the female fan-service that justified all the xander pillowfight fantasies and whatnot, just like Playgirl was supposed to justify Playboy as an even-steven proposition. Seriously, the day the comic book was first conceived, everyone involved was hyping that “OMG, we have this picture, it already exists, and it’s gonna blow your mind. This is what the fangirls have been waiting for all these years! This is IT!”
And of course, the image had just about zero legs the second it was published and was immediately forgotten. But really: how many women actually think the chained threesome is hot?
And in the second picture, yeah, had to squeeze that teddybear (teddy pig?) in, just to highlight youth.
Of course, Joss will just say he only wrote the liner notes and his employees just went where they went. Just like he’s hiring women as “his equals” (newsflash: you don’t hire equals, you’re the one hiring) so they can take the blame for Dollhouse:
“Oh my God, I’ve just written the sexy human trafficking show.” -actual quote
Congrats, Joss.
Thank you so much for that poem thebewilderness Ntozake Shange is just so eloquent. Pretty much how I feel every time I open the paper.
Rich, I couldn’t find it online but there is a picture of the Slayers all sitting around in their underwear, that is the child porn I was talking about. Cause one of the girls was in teddy bear underwear. So disturbing.
And the chained threesome image is even worse than as it is depicted here. At the top of the page there is a tunnel with trains entering the tunnel from either side… So kick-ass, empowered women like Buffy dream and fantasise about being chained between two men, in a porno nurses outfit in anticipation of being doubly penetrated. Yep, sounds pretty feminist to me.
And what? We haven’t seen this image in a thousand different comics and cartoon porn already? Sorry Joss, your fantasy, not ours. Now keep your disgusting porno mind to yourself and stop calling yourself a feminist.
“Oh my God, I’ve just written the sexy human trafficking show.” -actual quote
Urg!!!
I. don’t. even. want. to. know.
Hi Allecto, I’ve been following your blog and this might sound silly but I want to thank you for writing it. Your fearless pro-women writing is much needed in this mad patriarchal world.
On the topic of Whedon: I once saw an interview with him and didn’t understand why the other young feminists loved him so much. I remeber him saying that he was tired of getting the question “Why do you write these strong female characters” and that his response was “Because they’re sexy.” That says all, doesn’t it?
Something else that bothers me with the second picture you posted is that the blanket is transparent. Incompetent artist, or just a pornsick one?
http://tv.nytimes.com/2009/02/13/arts/television/13doll.html?ref=arts
Aside from the gender stereotyping (just because there is a pattern in Western patriarchy doesn’t mean the pattern is universal) it is pretty good blaming for the nytimes.
Thanks for the supportive comment, comic book lover.
“Why do you write these strong female characters” and that his response was “Because they’re sexy.” That says all, doesn’t it?
You know, so many feminists sent me a link to a youtube vid of Joss making that speech and telling me to watch it because it proved how wrong I was about him. So I watched it and was wholly unimpressed. Why are so many women fooled by his smarminess?
Ack, what part of I. don’t. even. want. to. know. did you not understand, Hell? *joke*
Sigh. Men are just so predictably, boringly dull. Apart from the whole ‘sexy, sex-trafficking’ thing.. which, in a world where women were valued as whole human-beings, would be unthinkable, the show sounds even more boring than Firefly. And I didn’t think I’d ever say that!
I’m not upset, fop, I am angry. And anger is very necessary. I didn’t choose the name allecto for nothing. She is one of the 3 furies. She is unceasing in anger. And I mean to live up to it.
Why Joss Whedon? Well, unlike many rad fems I was not exposed to pornographic degradation at a young age, nor was I exposed to any other kind of sexual conditioning into subordination. But I did watch Buffy. I grew up with her. I was 16 when she was sixteen, I graduated highschool the same year that she did. Buffy was like my twin sister. I loved that show so much. And one of the reasons that I loved the show so much was because it was feminist… At least I believed it was at the time, at least Whedon said he was, at least I was seduced into believing it. Long story short Buffy was in part responsible for conditioning me into heteronormative sexuality. I did the whole thing of being obsessed with dark, manly, violent men. I thought the sex was a man sticking his dick into a woman. I believed that losing your virginity (in that way) was a good thing and was necessary to attain true womanhood. I thought that having a dick stuck inside me would change me, seriously!!!! All of that shit. Thank goodness I had the sense to stay the fuck away from men and fight these totally unnatural, constructed ideas.
But most of those ideas were/are lauded in Buffy. Anyway, when I grew up I realised how fundamentally fucked up that show had made me. How skillfully and staelthily woman-hatred could disguise itself as feminism. And we fall for it. Everything around us is telling us the same thing. There are no political lesbians on Buffy. There are no older fat dyke role models. If Buffy is feminism, where are the Black women, the lesbian separatists? Why is one of the main characters (Xander) an advertisement for porn? Why does Buffy get pushed around physically by men that she is stronger than? etc, etc.
So, now I’m pretty pissed. And Whedon’s shows have been getting even worse. And so far I haven’t found anyone else writing or critiqueing his show from a lesbian feminist and anti-racist perspective. The fucker is still accepted by women as a feminist!!! I really don’t understand it.
Well, the truth is Angie, I don’t know any woman, lesbian or het, who looks like this. And dykes. Well, NONE of them even come close to looking like this. By and large dykes do not go around looking like perfect fuck toys, with pouty lips and shiny, long hair. If there are lesbians who look like this then I’ve never met them. Obviously they are a very rare breed. In fact I don’t even know if there are *any* women out there who look like this. Certainly there aren’t many.
I’ve never seen a woman lying down after sex with her hair still perfectly styled. Before now.
And why don’t they have a duvet instead of a net curtain covering them? It’s transparent. Sheets and blankets are not transparent.
I gotta admit, and I’m saying this as a Wheedon fan myself, this new one, the Doll’s House I think it’s called? I’m reserving judgement until I actually watch an episode, but the premise sounds pretty questionable.
A show with lesbian seperatists in a non-crazy protagonist role might be hard to sell. That having been said, I’d watch it. Until such point as the network tampered with it and one of them became involved with a man.
I need to start my own blog so I can go off on tangents about these things. Now my head is swimming with ideas.
This is a very interesting post, Allecto. I never watched Buffy when it was on. Did I miss anything? Would you recommend me to watch it?
The 1st image at the top reminds me of gonzo porn, the fastest growing genre of the pornography industry. Argh! 😡 This pornified culture would have us believe that women would be better off to accept the sexual world constructed by men. And this is a world in which double penetration is portrayed as an act that liberates women, and if we dare find that shocking or degrading then we are ‘prudes’ according to the patriarchists. Honestly, it doesn’t make sense! Men just restrict our sexual imagination and our thoughts of what real women’s liberation would be like. Which is why much (if not all) of the radical feminist discourse is so brutally silenced or criticized. The male culture simply doesn’t want women to have access to a healthier culture — than what malestream media has to offer us.
I don’t know any woman, lesbian or het, who looks like this. By and large dykes do not go around looking like perfect fuck toys, with pouty lips and shiny, long hair.
Well, obviously, I don’t imagine lesbian sex to look like this. I mean, the teddy bear, the thin sheet covering them so that men can see & objectify the shape of their body parts, them being perfectly thin and good-looking white women: all this comes from male-supremacist imagination of how lesbian should be.
Personally, I’d rather have a thick blanket to cover me after sex and, yes, my hair wouldn’t be so neat and tidy after sex.
But, Allecto, I have long hair though, and I don’t believe that lesbians having long hair is necessarily wrong. But I think it was not what you were implying, was it? Just asking…
Buffy was in part responsible for conditioning me into heteronormative sexuality. I did the whole thing of being obsessed with dark, manly, violent men. I thought the sex was a man sticking his dick into a woman. I believed that losing your virginity (in that way) was a good thing and was necessary to attain true womanhood. I thought that having a dick stuck inside me would change me, seriously!!!!
Well, the wider culture portrays intercourse as being the paradigm of all forms of sexuality – and all other stuff is generally described as ‘foreplay’. Most women’s orgasms are clitoral, but the patriarchy doesn’t care about that – hence the myth of the G-spot= http://www.uic.edu/orgs/cwluherstory/CWLUArchive/vaginalmyth.html
I don’t believe that sex should necessarily be about a man sticking his dick into a woman….
Anyway, Joss Whedon is a sheer patriarchist. I think you should write another post about his ‘Dollhouse’ and his quote about having written “the sexy human trafficking show.” It’s almost as if he sounded proud of having trivialized sex trafficking. 😦
Maggie hays: I second the idea of a post about Dollhouse. I think it’s started, so it should be easy enough to find online. Have you *read* the descriptions? It makes me wish i was still in university. The Women’s Studies department could have a field day. I’m contemplating writing my old professors about it.
Allecto: I don’t know, I’ve known some delightful longhaired, conventionally attractive, “looking like a fratboy’s dream” women who have also been tremendous lesbians. I am, however, confused as to why neither of them seems to have sex-hair. The implication is that they’ve just had sex of the underpants flinging, bedhsheets rumpling and neighbour offending variety, and their hair still looks as though they’ve just done it up for an evening on the town. By all rights, they should look like cockatiels. That, along with the strangely transparent and oddly shaped modesty bedsheet, is pure fanservice, and I find it kind of objectionable.
oh, and this is fop. same friendly service, new name. Apparently “fop” is too short a name for wordpress. go figure.
Allecto,the comic panels shown here are vile–depressing and boring, the “same old, same old” in a pornographic world. I’m too old to have been interested in Whedon’s output at any point, but I know he is extremely popular. His stuff is part of what we’re all soaking in, alas. You are fresh air, though, the seeress who sees THROUGH the matrix.
Well, I still don’t think that dykes do not look like the above image depicts us. I really *am* surprised that there are lesbians out there that look like this. I, honest to goodness, have never met any. But if they do exist then they are the exception rather than the rule.
And, Maggie, I truly don’t care how long your hair is, you are a beautiful capital L, Mary Dalyan, Lesbian, of course you are. But again, long hair is a BIG exception in the lesbian community. I know very few lesbians with hair that reaches their shoulders, even fewer that have hair past their shoulders. Maybe Aussie dykes are different than dykes in the rest of the world. None of us are really into all that femininity stuff. BUT of course you can reject femininity and still have long hair. I am growing my hair long at the moment because I find it too cold in the mountains to shave it. Hair has practical reasons for existing, it is men who have made it into a symbol of femininity and therefore ‘attractiveness’.
As an aside, it is really amazing how totally invisible, as a woman, a shaved head makes you. Before I shaved it all off, I would get wolf-whistled at, stared at etc, etc. With it all gone, nothing. It is wonderful. I’m not looking forward to the almost constant sound of car horns when my hair starts getting longer.
Hmm… it is a good idea to do a commentary on Doll’s House. I’ll definitely check the show out at some point.
Oh, and in regards to whether I’d recommend Buffy. Well, I enjoyed the show despite the racism and the sexism, there were some good things that the show did say and do. It did have good portrayals of female friendship… even a lesbian relationship which starts a bit later in the series. I like Willow and Tara’s relationship, even though they look straight.
Thanks and hugs as always, Level Best. You always make me feel special. ❤
I second the idea of a post about Dollhouse. I think it’s started, so it should be easy enough to find online. Have you *read* the descriptions?
Yeah, I once read a summary on IMDB. Part of it is about women being robot-dolls who can have their memory erased? Sick!
Maggie, I truly don’t care how long your hair is, you are a beautiful capital L, Mary Dalyan, Lesbian, of course you are.
Aw, thanks, Allecto.
of course you can reject femininity and still have long hair.
Again, thannks, for saying that. 🙂 I guess some lesbians would rather have short hair and I can totally understand that (if that is their own way of resisting femininity – every rad fem’s got her own way of doing it).
Hair has practical reasons for existing, it is men who have made it into a symbol of femininity and therefore ‘attractiveness’.
Exactly, this is pretty much the conclusion I’ve reached (after deciding to keep my long hair). It is *their* social construction, not mine.
Thanks for your comments on Buffy. I might check it out sometime…
Hmm… it is a good idea to do a commentary on Doll’s House. I’ll definitely check the show out at some point.
Yeah, go for it, Allecto!
Just another person encouraging you to do commentary on Dollhouse. I’m pretty certain it’s up on Hulu, though I don’t know if you can get that outside the US.
Fair warning, though. You’re right about his stuff getting worse. I haven’t seen it myself, but everyone I know is saying it’s horrible on every level. Even the people who completely deny there’s anything wrong Firefly are saying it’s creepy and disturbing, apparently in a way that wasn’t intentional. I know a few die-hard Joss fans who saw the first episode and are refusing to watch the rest of the series.
I’d love to see some serious radfem commentary on it. The commentary I’ve seen has all been negative, but doesn’t go much beyond “I feel like I need to shower after watching this.”
Hmm, watched a few interviews on youtube with Joss talking bout Dollshouse. Looking very, very not okay.
Right, I’m watching it right now. I started out trying to write an amusing blog post analysing it, but I’m about halfway through it, and quite frankly I can’t say I see anything funny about it. I’m probably going to write something anyhow, but I feel like I should take a bath first.
Ick.
Oh, and you could probably get it through surfthechannel, or alluc.
Color me crazy but considering I did a pretty good amount of research on BTVS for my senior project and pushed out 65 pages to validate how the show promotes a matriarchal society, adopting your own family and in turn breaks down a capitalistic world I found Whedon and Co to be rather feministic. Granted everything is subjective and not exactly absolute in my opinion so you can take each scene, character, episode differently but BTVS did help lesbian visibility. Often times Xander is mocked for wanting to be very masculine and overall it can’t appease everyone. I admit I was livid that when Spike tried to rape Buffy they didn’t tackle that issue more. It was a show that was greatly about family, how women should bond and support one another and often times the point is made that the women are stronger than the men, they surpass them. This is a simplification of the show but also I know gay women who look very similar to the characters. They do exist and also its a comic, its not meant to be overtly realistic (though the covers annoy because they aren’t anatomically correct and come off as awkward-notice Buffy’s arms in issue 1.) I digress, Buffy isn’t meant to stand in to represent a heterosexual/bisexual woman, she’s a character who is a small facet of human nature and complexies, just as the other character are. They go through uncertainties and develop.
In terms of Dollhouse, I’ve watched the episodes and sadly they fall flat. I think Whedon’s comment about sexy human trafficking was very dry and not meant to be taken seriously but I can’t impose and say for certain. Enjoy yourself. (I hope I didn’t offend anyone.)
The good thing about Dollhouse is that it actually does use it’s plot as an allegory for many feminist themes: how we are all “programmed” by society; how we use people (especially women) and imprint our own desires onto them; how evil and oppression usually exist in such a state of monotony that we don’t even notice them; how we all justify our own crimes against humanity; and that what may look like consent to our patriarchy-colored glasses isn’t actually real consent at all. In theory, this is all very sophisticated stuff. Unfortunately, the show doesn’t always deliver these themes in a sophisticated or even very interesting way. And it definitely employs objectification while at the same time condemning it, among many other problematic aspects, such as the constant violence against women. It is sometimes hard to watch, because I believe that it is using these problematic aspects to say something about sexism and how it is perpetuated, but at the same time I wonder if it isn’t perpetuating sexism in and of itself. I’d be really interested in your analysis of it, allecto, though if I were you I would start with either the second season or the sixth episode of the first season.
Interesting thoughts on Dollhouse, Chris. I have seen the first episode and found it incredibly boring. I dread the thought of watching more!
I have so many projects and thoughts on my mind about popular culture that I have no idea which one to devote my attention to. Also I have hit a severe writer’s block and I haven’t been able to write anything for months. I don’t know how likely it is that I will write about Dollhouse… but thanks for your interest.
Yes, the first five episodes are extremely dull. But it gets a lot better after that, at least in my opinion.
A few other feminists have written extensively on Dollhouse, if you’re interested in checking them out:
tigerbeatdown.com
amptoons.com/blog
I may be wrong when I say this, but I’m pretty sure that by the time Buffy the Vampire Slayer series hit the comic books in its eighth season, most of the major women characters (Buffy, Willow, Tara, Kennedy, Cordelia) were adults; over 18, anyway. Would that not make it simply pornography, not child pornography?
Stumbling onto this post a year late, alas! But I’m weighing in. 😉
When I was growing up in southern California, more than half of the lesbians I knew had long hair. In particular, most of the lesbians my mom was friends with were women with hair all the way down to their hips, and a tendency towards wearing long skirts. Our social circle was vegetarian Dianic Wiccans, and Willow and Tara are modeled in appearance after this particular social niche. (It is worth mentioning that this particular social niche is, of course, the one that American patriarchy feels the least threatened by.)
They’re not rare, but they’re also not THE most common lesbian you’ll see in the U.S. They are, however, the ones you’ll get used to seeing on American television. Men are nothing if not predictable.