Buffy

i didn't mean to imply it wasn't real - it's typical of abusers to single out targets they feel are vulnerable, while treating others normally. just mentioning because he DID have a great network of female talent that he would reuse in all his projects

yeah, the fact that his work was so straight-up girl power makes this story so daft

also - like Weinstein - not coincidental that he's finally getting a reckoning after his success/ability to produce hits has died over the last decade. shame it didn't happen sooner

I just think it suggests a particular kind of pleasure in being the feminist director who low key enjoys punishing actual women. Lots of smart men are feminist in theory.

What you said a while ago reminded me of how lots of his stories are about these superstrong, tiny women and that was always really jarring with a lot of the stories you’d hear floating around re Charisma & also what his ex-wife said about him. There’s a good summary with tons of links on The Cut about this.

I am just posting endlessly in this thread because the idea of him being mean to Sarah Michelle (for seven years! While she made him look like a genius and worked her ass off!) makes me want to KILL

I am also currently watching the Britney doc so I’m, like, rage short-circuiting.

https://64.media.tumblr.com/8596ee9f1a334b8669ba9687497ff260/tumblr_ox3gaxm11u1s9c6nao1_1280.jpg

By all means, post away. I’m glad the women are all supporting each other, I absolutely loved the Buffy women a lot.

also - like Weinstein - not coincidental that he's finally getting a reckoning after his success/ability to produce hits has died over the last decade. shame it didn't happen sooner

this is almost certainly more a case of people believing abuse testimonies / targets of abuse having outlets to speak than his hits drying up. His last decade of output has been: a film that grossed 1.5 billion; its sequel that grossed 1.4 billion; a film that grossed 70 mil on a 30mil budget and did well on home media; a self-funded B&W indie shot in his own house that grossed over 5 million; and writing & shooting 90% of a franchise film that grossed 660 million and is still the subject of so much cultural discussion that it's getting a 4-hour director's cut this year.

his ability to have people who worked on projects with him say positive things about him does seem to have progressively dried up over the decade, though.

second Avengers did well at the box office, but so does every Marvel movie. It's probably one of the most disliked MCU films though, and he basically didn't really want to do it. One wonders the same about Justice League...

is still the subject of so much cultural discussion that it's getting a 4-hour director's cut this year.

what was the 30mil/70mil movie?

Cabin In The Woods

oh, right. i love CITW but i didn't get the impression it was considered a success

success on its own terms, the only good thing he's written in a decade etc

anyway I really just wanted to make the point that its very good that so many ppl now feel able to speak out, whether or not he's vastly more prominent in Hollywood now than when Buffy was getting cancelled and having to move to a low-budget children's channel

horseshoe relentlessly otm, thanking u

I agree w/ sic, nhex's take seems ahistorical. Also he didn't direct CitW!

Look at this way - if Justice League had done gangbusters as WB had hoped, the Synderverse would've continued, we would've likely had the Cyborg and Flash movies by now, and this Ray Fisher thing would've disappeared. Carpenter only came out openly today because of her involvement in the investigation prodded by Fisher.

i don’t know what happened to anyone who hasn’t told me of course but conceivably women who worked for him multiple times are proud of their work, loved things about doing it, and told themselves at the time any parts they didn’t love were simply features of the industry, which as horseshoe stresses they would have been grimly correct about. speaking-out avalanches like this are imo mostly about laying the ground for people to refuse to put up w this kind of thing in the future, confident that it is not actually the necessary price for the real joy of playing cordelia.

aside from all the actress’ work the writing/directing credits of buffy episodes are pretty full of women’s names iirc; i haven’t thought of the show as a whedon auteur project for a long time. that i did once is obv part of the problem.

Yeah for sure; TV is collaboration and SMG and Carpenter in particular helped make Buffy great.

Amber Benson tweet:

Buffy was a toxic environment and it starts at the top. @AllCharisma is speaking truth and I support her 100%. There was a lot of damage done during that time and many of us are still processing it twenty plus years later. #IStandWithRayFisher #IStandWithCharismaCarpenter https://t.co/WJAmDGm76C

— Amber Benson (@amber_benson) February 10, 2021

i don’t know what happened to anyone who hasn’t told me of course but conceivably women who worked for him multiple times are proud of their work, loved things about doing it, and told themselves at the time any parts they didn’t love were simply features of the industry, which as horseshoe stresses they would have been grimly correct about. speaking-out avalanches like this are imo mostly about laying the ground for people to refuse to put up w this kind of thing in the future, confident that it is not actually the necessary price for the real joy of playing cordelia.

Or… these people work in an industry where getting work is notoriously difficult and getting predictable high-paying high-profile work is next to impossible so people end up taking jobs that with people they know over people they like because the people they know are the ones giving them jobs and everyone has bills.

yup. no rocket science required

Whedon was good at writing creepy, controlling nerd characters, like the Buffybot guy. Write what you know, I guess.

fun fact, the actor who played Buffybot guy (Adam Busch) had/has an almost-decent band called Common Rotation. I went to a house concert of theirs some time in the 2000s. I was dating a Buffy fan and he (Busch) was dating Amber Benson. We shared an elevator and, for some reason, bought her novel.

(Just to clarify, I don't mean that we bought her novel in the elevator. My memory of that night is fuzzy, but I think we got to talking and ended up buying a copy of her novel but I don't think we bought any of his records. They seemed nice.)

everyone has bills

sure. just saying “the boss is an abusive asshole” is not the only quality of a job, which is another reason continuing to work with him isn’t proof you think he isn’t.

It can also be hard to realize how abusive an environment is when you are immersed in it, especially if the other people immersed in it have come to think of it as normal. And if you are young and it's one of your first work experiences, you may not have the frame of reference to know what's expected and what's not.

Yeah and if you swim in the soup of a misogynist culture everyday. Who among us doesn't look back on the stuff we put up with in our teens and twenties with horror?

“Buffy the Vampire Slayer” actress Michelle Trachtenberg claims showrunner and creator Joss Whedon was not allowed to be alone with her on set.

jesus christ

a Firefly writer:

"Casually cruel" is a perfect way of describing Joss. He thought being mean was funny. Making female writers cry during a notes session was especially hysterical. He actually liked to boast about the time he made one writer cry twice in one meeting. #IStandWithCharismaCarpenter https://t.co/SgPF1rgRby

— Jose Molina (@JoseMolinaTV) February 13, 2021

My dream is all the actresses & their stunt doubles show up at his door and roundhouse kick him in his face one after another

Fucking w all these great women who made these shows successful is just so heinous

It hurts my heart & makes me so angry

Such a huge, Louis CK-like dissonance between how he presented himself in his art, and how he treated people in real life, although I guess both showcased Whedon’s narcissistic, erotic need to see people in distress.

Most cruelty is casual.

yes, but it's good to add to the fuller picture of his shitbaggery, vs the extremely targeted cruelty around Carpenter that has been known for years.

My dream is all the actresses & their stunt doubles show up at his door and roundhouse kick him in his face one after another

Fucking w all these great women who made these shows successful is just so heinous

It hurts my heart & makes me so angry

― terminators of endearment (VegemiteGrrl), Sunday, February 14, 2021 2:30 AM (seven hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Same. Would watch Carpenter grind him under her heel.

boreanaz tweeted his support for carpenter over the weekend

I am here for you to listen and support you. Proud of your strength♥️🙏

— David Boreanaz (@David_Boreanaz) February 14, 2021

<3

(the murdernerd actors have all tweeted similar things, A.S.H. professed himself surprised and distressed when asked on radio, Carpenter replied to Boreanaz thanking him for also having been supportive privately earlier, and Nicholas Brendon posted a video to facebook complaining about rando followers pestering him for a statement before he has had time to process, and that he is more immediately concerned with upcoming surgery for his paralysed penis and anus.)

yikes/lol at that nicholas brendon story

surgery for his what

I can't even laugh that's just rough as hell

Carpenter to Eliza Dushku in the comments of Charisma's 'stagram:

I owe you an apology. I never lent my voice to you privately nor publicly when you shared your truth after suffering sexual misconduct in the workplace. As I wrote to you privately, this makes your statement of support sweeter. And as I said to J, your loving embrace empowers others to feel safe to share their stories. Thank you for being who you are. Thank you for your inspiring words of support. I will never forget how you have made me feel. 💖

Big reported (with BTL workers) story:
https://variety.com/2021/tv/features/joss-whedon-buffy-angel-charisma-carpenter-toxic-workplace-1234915549/

According to sources, after Whedon created “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” in 1997, he was largely left alone, operating on a tight budget with little oversight, thanks to a steady stream of strong media buzz and rich key-demo ratings. The show shot at a relatively remote location on soundstages in Santa Monica where executives were not regularly roaming around, and the production operated much like an indie film. Insiders say the combination of Whedon’s lack of experience running a television show, the financial pressures of delivering an action-and-effects-heavy hourlong dramedy, a cast largely populated with young and eager actors, and the absence of regular supervision contributed to an environment ripe for a chaotic, highly competitive, toxic workplace. Many people who spoke with Variety described the set as operating like high school, with Whedon making everyone aware of who was in and who was out.

Another major factor contributing to the messy nature of the “Buffy” set: Stories of Whedon engaging in affairs with women working on the show quickly spread, according to three independent sources. As the executive producer and showrunner, Whedon was the boss, including of the women with whom he engaged in relationships. The alleged behavior contributed to a toxic workplace and heightened competition on set, blurring the lines between personal and professional demeanor for the cast — dynamics that continued long after Whedon’s purported affairs ended.

This describes so so many toxic workplaces pic.twitter.com/NQoNYThItV

— Kendra "Gloom is My Beat" Pierre-Louis (@KendraWrites) February 26, 2021

The last 1/3 of this is a nice write-up of the screwball mode of American art.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/v7d34y/when-joss-whedon-was-our-master

wherein: Joss Whedon, a narcissist hangs himself with his own rope, preserving the rich tradition of selfowning narcissists since time immemorial

the final paragraph is like *throws phone through window*

https://www.vulture.com/article/joss-whedon-allegations.html

and the Ray Fisher stuff is wtf

I guess Joss Whedon's comeback strategy is to gaslight Ray Fisher on Martin Luther King Jr. Day? pic.twitter.com/jRa1Lt3iVA

— ☕Stephen M. Colbert (@smcolbert) January 17, 2022

I doubt Whedon specified that Vulture should publish on MLK Day, but it is extremely damning anyway

That piece xyz linked is weak though. The writer seems to think screwball is defined as a) is based on a play and b) privileges dialogue over action; they also only cite His Girl Friday (ok) and Arsenic & Old Lace (uh wut) as exemplars of screwball.

I understand why JW has emerged as a popular lightning rod for overly stylized, recognizably voiced, "all the characters sound the same" screenwriting, but if you actually lived through his rise to fame you might recall all the same things being said about Kevin Williamson, Amy Sherman Palladino, Aaron Sorkin, Diablo Cody, etc. Not to mention Woody Allen, Armando Ianucci, Succession, etc. There are countless other examples

Fisher in response

Looks like Joss Whedon got to direct an endgame after all…

Rather than address all of the lies and buffoonery today—I will be celebrating the legacy of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Tomorrow the work continues.#MLKDay

A>E

— Ray Fisher (@ray8fisher) January 17, 2022

JW cant even use the "have to go pee" move again now

Thanks Rob, don't know much about screwball so was wondering what others thought about it.

digging into the real issue tho: his adjustable dome size is mesmerising and perhaps even in its way beautiful

Thoughts and prayers for silence. pic.twitter.com/D9PynqmnHz

— Aaron Pruner (@AaronFlux) January 17, 2022