Others include his kickass cameo on Veronica Mars and, oh, that little show he thunk up about the blonde teenager who sticks wooden things in the hearts of people who are allergic to the sunlight.
Joss Whedon talking about Equality, like, right now:
Thank you, Joss. You know, as a woman, and as a woman who writes what is called “women’s fiction” (Maureen, you’re okay with that but not chick lit? Don’t you think that once you’re ghettoized, it doesn’t matter what term they use to do it?), I love that you make the whole debate sound as ridiculous as it is. Some have said that my protagonist’s struggle is unrealistic in this day and age. Others have said that’s bullshit and that there are plenty of times when people, including, say, presidents of Ivy League Universities, forget that we don’t hold truck with the notion that women are a “weaker sex.” Institutionalized sexism may be going the way of the dodo, but that doesn’t mean we have equality now.
Recently, I was asked (not by him!) not to refer to Sailor Boy as a feminist, because it made him sound unmasculine. Um, the hell?
Like Joss, I write strong women. But I don’t think about doing it.
August 28th, 2006 at 8:57 am
Thanks so much for sharing, Diana! That was fabulous.
August 28th, 2006 at 9:18 am
On the eve of the release of Marisela’s next book, this really struck a chord for me. I’ve always written strong women and never thought much about it–except as a way to counter all the not-strong women I’d read about who made me sick to my stomach because THEY were unrealistic and part of some male-fantasy that women have accepted as truth.
As for those who don’t think Amy’s struggles are realistic…wow. Just wow. Do they really think that sexism is dead? Do not they get out much?
Clearly, we’ve made great strides in proving women can do just about anything men can do–though we might do it differently. But to say that sexism is dead is like saying racism is dead. We’re working on it, but we’ve got a long way to go.
Thanks for the post, Diana. I’ve always thought Joss Whedon was brilliant…to hear him speak was plain inspiring.
And he’s doing Wonder Woman? Where have I been? With my Justice League obsession, I can’t believe I didn’t know that!
August 28th, 2006 at 10:28 am
I agree, Julie. I think the main difference is that sexism takes a much subtler form these days. But things are W-A-Y better now because at least people in general recognized that sexism is wrong. I’m in my 40’s, and I can remember when there were serious debates about whether men SHOULD be paid more than women because they were head of household and had families to support, and a women job was just “something extra” for the family. I remember when supervisor’s admittedly promoted young men over young women because they didn’t take a woman’s career seriously, since she was probably just going to get married, start having babies and quit her job anyways. Women who wanted to succeed in business had to act like men and dress like men (I remember well choking on those high-collared button down oxford shirts and silk rosettes that were the “uniform” for women at the major law firm where I started my career in the late 1980’s). Yes, we still have a way to go, but I’m glad my daughter is growing up in world where young women find sexism surprising and disturbing when it rears its ugly head, not a world where it’s taken for granted as just the way things are.
August 28th, 2006 at 10:31 am
“Anonymous” was me (Phyllis). No idea why blogger decided to delete my name. Altho the first time it deleted my entire post, lol.
August 28th, 2006 at 12:15 pm
Now I get it. I never caught on to the Buffy bandwagon. I bought season one and started to watch it but got bored. I’m going to keep plowing through it.
I’m weird. I come from a long line of strong women. I expect women to be strong and when they aren’t. Well, I usually can’t be bothered with them. Even at my age I didn’t experience sexism (that I noticed–I wasn’t looking for it mind you) until I was 24 and essentially deadended in a job because of a sexist-misogynistic department head. It stunned me. But I shook it off and moved forward.
I should really blog about this because I have such strong feelings about women and men being liberated so that we can live the lives we were meant to live as human beings, hormones and genitalia notwithstanding.
(P.S. The DD now has me watching season one of Veronica Mars on weekly installments…)
August 28th, 2006 at 1:01 pm
LOL, Phyllis. I think I know your blog voice too well. I thought, “well, that anonymous commenter sounds so much like Phyllis! Wonder why she didn’t sign her name?”
Gina, you gotta keep going with Buffy. I didn’t start watching until season four, but season three is my fave. But now that I’ve watched the whole thing, I don’t think it really started picking up speed until the VERY end of that (short) first season. Like, the last episode, when Xander, trying to mobilize the stupid lunk of a vampire into saving his friend’s life, responds to Angel’s snarky, “You’re in love with Buffy, aren’t you?” with, “Aren’t you?” OMG… *love*. May be my favorite line in a series full of favorite lines. And you sit there and think about moments like that when you hear Whedon speak like this. It’s a movie about a woman leader who is such a natural leader that her soldiers (Xander) don’t think twice about it, don’t get into a power struggle as part of loving her, but can love her, knowing that she’s so much stronger than they are, not even stressing about it, just being like, “and what can *I* do?”
Ahem, anyway. Yay Buffy.
August 28th, 2006 at 1:13 pm
No… I don’t like that they label women’s fiction, either. But I’m coming to terms with it. Perhaps I need therapy
Re: hearting Joss Whedon. I recently wathed Firefly on DVD. OMG. LOVED it. And the “first mate” on that show was a woman and was definitely the second in command above the other men and you never questioned how good she was at her job. Neither did he ever make the fact she was female come into her job or the risks she takes.
Joss rocks.
And sexism is so not dead. I was a teen in the 70’s and really believed that because of women’s lib, my gender wouldn’t matter when I started work. Deluded. I can’t count the number of times my gender held me back professionally or at least affected how I was treated.
Amy’s struggle in your book was very realistic for me.
August 28th, 2006 at 1:29 pm
I actually heard one of our sales guys today (25 years old) say that he prefers not to do business with women. That women should stay home and cook and clean and have dinner waiting for him when he got home. I couldn’t take it and yelled out, “Have you been watching re-runs of LEAVE IT TO BEAVER? What’s your problem?” He was stunned. He had NO idea how it came out. None at all. Should have seen the backpedaling when all the sales women came down on him. LOL!!
August 28th, 2006 at 7:13 pm
I honestly thought a lot of the plots in Buffy and Firefly could have been better (seriously I’m like that annoying kid in High School – “you’re favorite band sucks”) but that just means you won’t see me in a “Joss Whedon is God” T-shirt at comic con. His women characters, all his characters, and the witty banter are pretty awesome. That speech was wonderful.
I think Veronica Mars, Season 1, is the pinnacle of kick-ass heroines on television.
I also think Hayao Miyazaki’s (Howl’s Moving Castle, Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke) heroines are awesome. All the more impressive since Japan is behind the US as far as that goes.
Of course it is unfortunate that these tend to be the exceptions rather than the rules. And then there was that Forbes article…
August 29th, 2006 at 10:09 am
Shameless, I know…but for those who want a kickass heroine story…DIRTY LITTLE LIES ships today.
Yes, I have no fingernails left.
August 29th, 2006 at 11:12 am
Thanks for bringing this to us, Diana. Wonderful!
August 29th, 2006 at 12:17 pm
I didn’t have 8 minutes today, but that was worth spending the time to watch. I write strong female characters because I’m a strong female. Just ask my husband. And I do owe it to my mother as well, because she always told me I could be anything and do anything I set my mind to. Including writing a book and getting it published.
August 29th, 2006 at 3:38 pm
Off topic: I would like to inform you of how much I enjoyed reading what you had to say on “The Elegant Variation” blog. Well said.
And I love Joss Whedon too. Firefly.
August 29th, 2006 at 5:31 pm
Thanks, Breca. Sadly, to protect my bloodpressure, I stopped going back to that argument. It had a stupid set-up and then just went downhill from there.
I’ve got deadlines to meet. I can’t spend time on this.
August 29th, 2006 at 9:30 pm
I agree with Phyllis, that the fact that there are people who don’t think sexism is an issue means that for a lot of us, it’s not. I mean, I can cite instances where I was affected by it (my guidance counselor telling me not to take high ability science even though I took HA everything else, or my boss at National Geographic praising my coworker for being an “expert” at the exact same job I did). But those are tiny things. Yes, they add up to something bigger, but I never was held back in anything I wanted to do because of my gender.
I’m not saying it’s not a fight that needs to be fought–I’m just agreeing that it’s better than it was.
eatrawfish, I betcha anything that the plots in Firefly that you thought were subpar were not written by Joss Whedon. The Train Job doesn’t count, that was a Fox network fiasco. I also have found that after watching some of those episodes that were my non-favorites, I found subtexts and relationship elements that transcended my initial lack of enthusiasm.
Anyway, that’s getting too far off topic.
If Joss Whedon hadn’t been my god before I saw that clip, he sure is now.