You have it, right here.
You have to wonder why he would want to alienate so much of his fan base. I guess that the notion doesn’t occur to people in the Hollywood cocoon.
52 thoughts on “Joss Whedon’s Worst Production”
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You have it, right here.
You have to wonder why he would want to alienate so much of his fan base. I guess that the notion doesn’t occur to people in the Hollywood cocoon.
Comments are closed.
Greetings,
I am so glad I bought the Firefly CD series several years ago. I will not replace them if the dogs eat them.
One word – Done.
Regards,
Can’t pronounce “Ayn”. Scary.
When I saw this yesterday I assumed it was a clever parody of how illogical and ridiculous some liberals are in painting their opponents as subhuman. Not only will Romney destroy healthcare and education, he will literally bring on the zombie apocolypse!
By mocking typical liberal rhetoric, Whedon is hurting Obama and helping Romney.
Are you suggesting that is not his intention?
The classic “I was just kidding” defense?
If he had been wearing blue nitrile gloves at the beginning while he was drying the glass and saying “you know, like a lot of liberal Americans, I…” it would have been perfectly hilarious, and indicated the parody to those paying attention. But he didn’t.
His mispronunciation of “Ayn” and the context in which he brought her up also made no sense (insinuating an Objectivist would be more likely to die in a zombie apocalypse). Those ignorant of her work and parroting the normal statist argument from intimidation against her often mispronounce her name. Taken together it seems ridiculous enough to be parody… or he really could be ignorant.
It can be so hard to discern parody these days. You really can’t be subtle about it.
If it helps, the various Progressives I know all love this video and think it’s Totally Awesome.
I didn’t watch it, because A) I don’t watch media idiots talk about politics any more than I watch anyone, which is to say not at all and B) Who the hell cares about Joss Whedon?
He’s stated previously that he’s a liberal progressive.
It also seems to be pretty clear that he hasn’t the first notion of what a republican, conservative, libertarian -or- objectivist position actually is.
So: Another pyromaniac in a field of self-created strawmen.
More turncoat than brown coat.
Ok, which one of you Republicans stole his ladyparts?
That would be Christina Hendricks. She’s got more than her fair share to be sure.
Hmm, perhaps I should check out that slideshow again to be sure.
Hey, I’m using that.
Could anybody else look this hawt in that outfit?
It makes you wonder what he was actually thinking when he wrote the character of Mal Reynolds.
That’s what I was thinking.
I guess captain mal was fighting for a slightly different all-powerful central government that would demand total dependence from its citizens.
When he was writing the character of Mal Reynolds, he was copying Eastwood’s Josey Wales…in Spaaaaaace….
I’ve always wondered how much input Tim Minear had in the writing and character bibles on Firefly. People tend to credit Whedon with full auteur credits… which he seems to like to encourage, private-school film student as he is.
If you listen to the Director’s commentary on the “Objects in Space” episode on the Firefly DVD, you’ll be convinced that Whedon either does a lot of drugs or has suffered severe memetic brain damage.
As for Tim Minear and Firefly, here’s from the horse’s mouth:
Of course he could have been saying that to preserve professional relationships, but there it is for what it’s worth. See the link in my name for full details there.
However, I just checked Minear’s Wikipedia bio and I see that he wrote a screenplay for The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Oh man, I hope that gets made.
*cough* Starship Troopers *cough*
Was a great film, as long as you don’t expect it to be the book.
Viewed as a propaganda film from that universe, it’s brilliant.
Well, if they didn’t want people to think it resembled the book, they should have called it, “Vacuous White Teen Bug Hunt.” The fact that they didn’t means bait-and-switch was part of the plan.
Similarly, I, Robot. I’m not so sure about Bladerunner. There’s no way that Bladerunner makes sense in the context of the story; I guess they just liked Nourse’s title. It’s certainly catchier than “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep”.
“If Joss could only write from the point of view of characters with which he agreed, he wouldn’t be Joss.”
Larry Niven once said that ‘authors have a term for readers who confuse our values with those of our characters: we call them idiots.’
While I certainly don’t agree with Mr Whedon, and his shows are distinctly “meh” as far as I’m concerned, many great authors have written believable characters who are the opposite of their own personalities. I would argue, in fact, that such a talent is the very definition of a good writer. In Niven’s case, he was referring to a woman who who kept insisting that because he had penned the character of a drug addict so convincingly, he must in fact be a drug addict.
Idiots, indeed.
Quite a while back I was listening to an actress (Sarah Sutton. *pant pant*) with a similar complaint–people confusing her with her characters. Her standard comeback–“It’s called *Acting*”. Later, I heard Marina Sirtis use a similar comeback. Maybe it’s common in England.
It’s one of the intriguing curiosities of art that it often works best when the theme is a truth that the author knows subconsciously but is unwilling to admit.
The real question: why is he pretending to clean-up after pretending to cook breakfast?
For show, like Paul Ryan washing clean dishes at a soup kitchen.
No, because Ryan’s washing of the dishes was the overt message, just like Wedon’s rant. That you’re making political hay of it proves this point.
I agree. Everyone knows it is the outsides of pots and pans that get dirty when you cook with them.
Ask Obama why he pretends to bowl and drink beer.
I haven’t seen it (the video). I learned a long time ago that if I’m to enjoy any given Hollywood movie, then I can expect I won’t like the maker’s politics. Let’s consider Whedon’s lastest production, which is the last movie I saw in theater and now own on blu-ray: Avengers. Besides Whedon, who has now made it clear he’s a lefty; you have Samuel L. Jackson and Christina Hendricks that have actively campaigned for Obama. Gwneth Paltrow has long been a Democrat. I’ve ignored Robert Downey Jr’s politics because I enjoy his movies. So that’s it, I liked the movie and I ignore their politics.
That said, I do watch a lot less stuff than I used too. And there are certain people I just can’t stand to watch no matter what movie they make. For instance, I thought I would enjoy a biographic on Howard Hughes, but all I could see is a pathetic and overly dramatic Dicaprio. I never finished the movie, and damned near turned it off in the first scene (why do I need to see a grown woman bathing a standing naked pre-teen boy in what is a supposedly serious movie?)
I liked the scene with Katherine Hepburn’s family.
Le, you really should see “Looper” if you haven’t already. No spoilers, but it’s almost Nolan-esque in its subversion.
Saw it a week ago. Everyone woman (with a speaking part) in that movie is a whore, or an ex-whore. What’s with that? Also, you don’t take Bruce Willis to the armory. Idiots.
Joss needs to shut up and direct.
But Jim should just keep talking. His inane (and inaccurate) stupidity often makes me laugh long and loud.
I saw it as a parody…
Self-parody is parody…
Big Bird and zombie apocalypse is the Democrat campaign. Can we get an adult in the White House please?
The Democrat world view of life as an SNL skit is detrimental to our country’s long term health.
The best satire and parody is when it it is believable that it isn’t.
Maybe Joss needs heaps of congratulatory emails for fine parody.
It’s like a Rorschach test. It lets the person read into whatever they want. The dem’s love the snarkiness and the derisiveness of it. The R’s love how it makes the dem’s seem petty and small. People who like zombies just get a good ole LoL out of it. It’s got something for everybody which pretty much seems to be Joss’ style.
He is right though. Their will be a zombie apocalypse if Romney wins the election. The Obatomized masses will stagger into the streets clutching their poll numbers and obama-phones while rioting.
Will it be fast zombies or slow zombies? Probably a hybrid between the slow OWS style zombie and the faster urban post-game riot zombie.
Little will be done to address the zombie threat except clean up after their mess even as their numbers will grow due to illegal drone wars in Africa and growing corporate profits. Ironically, this will lead to a new type of zombie, the part time zombie, who no longer zombies during working hours and can only zombie after 5pm and on weekends.
Just remember, shotguns run out of shells but a good long blade weapon just keeps on slicing necks.
Rob Roy illustrates a counter-example (almost). People get tired, it takes a lot of work to hack through a zombie uprising, and blades heavy enough to decapitate require a lot of strength and skill and stamina (and another s–sharpening. Zombies aren’t likely to give you an opportunity to pull out the file and take out the bone nicks. And blades do get stuck, at which point they’re more like anchors). Regardless, if you’re close enough for sword-work you’re way too close. Blades are for your death dance, once you’re out of ammo or they’ve worked their way in behind you.
Maybe diesel-powered farm implements would work better? Has anyone done a zombie film where farmers fight back with combines?
I’m a huge fan of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, and a lot of other Whedon products. So it pained me to discover what big lefties not only Whedon but also many of his actors were. (But not Sarah Michelle Gellar, Hah!)
They even pimped themselves out for an Obama fundraiser in 2008. ($50 admittance fee to mingle with stars from BTVS) As much as a fan I am, I’m not THAT much of fan.
But the reason why the Whedon anti-Romney video seems like a parody, is because that is how little understanding people like Whedon seem to have of their political enemies.
I am reminded of another political video by Olivia Wilde that ran in 2010, attacking Republicans. Like the Whedon video, it is so stupid it seems like it must be a parody. Nope. See for yourself
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfXNVhU2EfM
The most creative people in the world usually have, for lack of a better word, a screw loose. That creativity we so treasure comes at the expense of common sense, reasonability, etc.
Now, take someone who has these problems, and surround them with similar people with the same issues…plus an uninterrupted supply of money.
Welcome to Hollywood.
The rub is that what emerges from there is mostly unoriginal drek.
Titus, Sturgeon’s Law was formulated in or about 1958. Most of everything is unoriginal dreck. Where Hollywood excels is in its very common practice of taking an original idea and sequelising it to death rather than producing new material. Sometimes the very first sequel does the job; sometimes it takes longer.
And when the sequels run out, they wait a few years and try a reboot.
Sturgeon’s Law is that 90% of everything is dreck. Hollywood’s lament is “If only”.
If post-modernism had destroyed 90% of art by 1958, what’s the percentage today?
Devils advocate – what’s the difference between Whedon’s schtick and Charlton Heston’s?
Titus – Perhaps I should have added “and always was, and always will be”.
I’m quite sure that there were a great number of utterly unoriginal plays written and performed in Shakespeare’s time. They are forgotten – fortunately.
Similarly, people with an advanced case of galloping nostalgia for the music of the 1950s (for example) forget the formulaic rubbish that was produced then and almost certainly comprised at least 90% of 1950s music. Ditto any other era. Including the 2010s, natch. And ditto most forum posts. 😉