The Joss Whedon Problem

When I was younger all I wanted to be was as confident and strong as Buffy Summer; and as loyal and determined as Willow Rosenberg. (Also, can I point out that Buffy, Sarah Michelle Geller, and her friends are called the Scooby Gang in the show and then Sarah Michelle Geller played Daphne in the Scooby Doo live action movies. Okay anyway back to my blog.) Buffy theVampire Slayer was a show I found the first strong teen I could look up to. She wasn’t on a Disney Channel show and she had real world problems, like killing vampires and being a badass. Today, there are superheroes to take that place for young girls, but they still have to face the fact that men have the control over how these strong women are depicted to us and these young girls.

For example, let’s look at someone who inspired me and today’s kids, Joss Whedon. Joss Whedon is the wildly famous known male feminist who created the show Buffy the Vampire Slayer, thus creating the badass who is Buffy Summers. Being that of a nerd the man loves science-fiction and anything comic book related. Which is how he became the director and screenwriter for The Avengers and The Avengers: Age of Ultron. Though within these movies his values seem to change, and it wasn’t until his divorce to Kai Cole in 2017 that his true façade had shined out into the world. His ex-wife had written an article on how much her ex-husband was a hypocrite and quite honestly after Black Widow and his screenplay of his unproduced 2006 Wonder Woman script, I don’t think she was wrong.

Looking at this article with Kenneth Burke’s dramatic pentad in mind, I am able to define the use of act, agent, agency, scene, and purpose to the article Kai Cole wrote about her ex-husband, thus exposing the true culture of men in dominating the depiction of strong women in pop culture.

Act: Joss Whedon admits to 15 years of affairs with women he could control due to his power over them, not only deceiving them but his wife the majority of their marriage. Giving light to how his “feminist” label is a façade in the limelight.

Agent(s): Joss Whedon and Kai Cole

Agency: Over the course of 15 years of power and control from the fame of Buffy the Vampire Slayerand projects that came later.

Scene: Los Angeles/Hollywood (the male-dominated Hollywood)

Purpose: I don’t really know why he did it but according to Kai Cole, “He wanted it all; he didn’t want to choose, so he accepted the duality as a part of his life.” In the terms of the article it was done to stop the world’s view of her ex-husband to be that of his true self, non-feminist.

In Kai Cole’s essay she addresses how her then-husband was a man who mostly paid attention to women, while his responds according to her was, “because his mother raised him as a feminist, so he just liked women better. He said he admired and respected females, he didn’t lust after them.” The agent – Joss Whedon – lies in order to deceive his act and in that of the affairs he soon has with women. Not only in the terms of how his actions changed but how he decided to end their marriage and come clean of the 15 years of lying to the woman he said, “[He loves] how you are, how we are, who you are and what we’ve done both separately and together, how much fun we have…,” to Kai.

The use of the Agent’s – Kai Cole – use of Joss’ words to depict how his Act was unlike his persona in the public eye expresses just how the man could drive a character who should inspire girls is placed in the back or only sexual objectified. Much like how his actors in The Avengers, objectified Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow, as a slut saying, “But if you slept with four of the six Avengers, no matter how much fun you had, you’d be a slut. Just saying. I’d be a slut. Just saying.”

The essay shifts into her own perspective to address her own opinion on the note her ex had left her and her quoting it the other half of the essay. The act over powers the agent in that of her words,

Despite understanding, on some level, that what he was doing was wrong, he never conceded the hypocrisy of being out in the world preaching feminist ideals, while at the same time, taking away my right to make choices for my life and my body based on the truth.

Showing how the Act of his infidelity had no impact on how his being/Agent, expressing how the Scene can have the same problem. Much like how Jeremy Renner said Black Widow was a slut and how many critics after Captain America: Winter Solider was released, according to The Daily Dot’s Gavia Baker-Whitelaw, only seemed to describe Scarlett Johannsson’s character by how she was dressed:

Bear in mind that most of these quotes are the only description of Scarlett Johansson’s performance in the entire review.

In the New Yorker, Anthony Lane wrote, “not to be left out, Black Widow repels invading aliens through the sheer force of her corsetry,” … New York Times reviewer A.O. Scott referenced the 1960s British spy series The Avengers (no relation), writing, “those poor souls who cherish old daydreams of Diana Rigg in leather will have to console themselves with images of Scarlett Johansson in a black bodysuit.”

… while Salon’s Andrew O’Hehir didn’t even bother to beat around the bush, describing, “Scarlett Johansson in a catsuit… cocking her head just so as if to acknowledge that she’s the idealized fetish object of the 11-year-old boy within every so-called adult male.” Idealized fetish object.

The fact of the matter is that Kai’s essay is to show how the Purpose/Agent drives the force of how the two personas match up. The Agent, Joss, is this “powerful producer” around all these “beautiful, needy, aggressive young women” how would the Purpose to the essay not end up being the same. The Act is what drew him to his “disease” like that of a “Greek myth” in the first place to build up to Kai’s courage to tell her story (Purpose).

I mean I cannot blame her for not wanting the world to hear about the man she had been duped to believe was someone different for the majority of the time you knew him. If he can live two lives in his personal life what else is he capable of. The only way that could be solved is expressing the Purpose of the essay.

I want the people who worship him to know he is human, and the organizations giving him awards for his feminist work, to think twice in the future about honoring a man who does not practice what he preaches.But no matter what happens, or how people interpret this statement, I no longer have to carry the burden of Joss’ long-term deceit and confessions. I am free.

Now if I could the Purpose imposed in your brain after just reading it, can be applied to the way Diana Prince is pictured in both Joss Whedon’s 2006 non-produced script of Wonder Woman, and her in Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice:

The two both express how Diana is a beautiful woman and has great hair, but one goes as far to say, “Her body is curvaceous, but taut as a drawn bow.” After reading Kai Cole’s essay about her ex-husband, I probably wouldn’t have thought of that line as anything other than how all male writers write their female superheroes for the most part. But knowing that Joss’ views are women are not that innocent than “his mother raised him as a feminist” I feel as though his purpose is not that innocent. So, the fact that her essay shows how Joss was drives her Purpose/Agent in full force in a lot of his work. Thus, showing the dark side of Hollywood, the power driven and “Greek myth”-ed men of the town.

Before I leave you, take a look at how the actual Wonder Woman, wrote how Diana looked, and while they did already have Gal Gadot set to play the part it does make you think about how Joss’ description of Diana makes you want a shower.