All I’m saying is the article is selectively written. It picks and chooses what it writes to make Whedon look in the worst possible light.
I could have put “victim” in ironic quotes, but then I would have got shit from someone for that. If you sleep with your boss, does that always make you a victim?
…it wasn’t selectively written. Whdeon put himself in a bad light. Read what he wrote about Gal Gadot. Ray Fisher. Zack Synder. The fact that he doesn’t really deny anything. The fact that he states he was powerless to not sleep with the women he worked with.
Its all his own words. Nobody elses. And you can ignore this article if you like and read everything else that has been said about him in the last two years that backs everything in the article up.
You used the word victim. I didn’t choose to use it: I don’t have to defend its use. Those examples you chose to use were from the part of the article talking about his affairs. The context was not unclear.
The Gadot line really stuck in my craw. “The thing you gotta understand about Gal, she no speaka da English so good if you know what I mean. But it wasn’t her language skills that got her this far, am I right fellas?” [Note for legal purposes: that was a sarcastic interpretation, not a direct quote of Whedon.]
Nice to see that Gadot shut that shit down immediately.
Did anyone else hear all of Joss Whedon’s comments in Bojack Horseman’s voice?
wow…. He cannot do damage control. I figured guys like him have PR firms to craft a message and prepare answers beforehand…. Apparently not.
No kidding. Like there so few Israelis that speak English, she couldn’t possibly understand him. She’s probably been speaking English most of her life.
Really, he comes off looking worse after that interview than before. He should have had his PR person in the bathroom to give him advice every time he went to pee.
Any time someone runs off to the bathroom every 30-40 minutes I assume it’s because they need to do another bump. Not saying Joss has become a fiend in his forced retirement, but he does spend the interview being a self-destructive chatterbox.
Could be prostrate issues or diabetes.
Either way, I found the article very credible. I can’t imagine what he is thinking by giving this interview.
Well, that could account for his weight loss…
Me either. There was nothing in the interview that helped him in any way. All he did was deny things that other people had already corroborated and insult the people that made the allegations.
So he can’t take this lying down?
The same thing that any narcissist and/or sociopath thinks - I didn’t do anything anyone else wouldn’t have done, so once I explain myself and set the record straight, everyone will understand that I was in the right.
RE the repeated trips to the bathroom:
Maybe I’m being whooshed by the references in this thread, but Whedon explains that in the article. He tells the interviewer he was advised to make that excuse when he felt like he needed some time to collect his thoughts. He clearly felt like that a lot during the interview. (And, yeah, despite the frequent breaks to collect his thoughts and consider his answers, he still comes up with things like saying he felt powerless not to sleep with subordinates…).
I don’t actually think it’s likely that Whedon is a cokehead. I brought it up only because there were two people in my circle of acquaintances over the years who were known for regular brief disappearances who later turned out to be using, and the behavior seemed comparable to me. The fact that he’s an obliviously self-obsessed motormouth throughout the interview is also an interesting point of comparison. Nevertheless, I do believe the most likely explanation is that he’s just a neurotic weirdo.
That said: If he were popping off for a quick bump under the excuse of needing to pee, wouldn’t he become paranoid that the interviewer might start doubting his alibi, and decide to deflect with an alternative cover story? The fact that he says he’s avoiding questions is not ipso facto proof that it’s the real reason.
But, again, I was just musing briefly, and didn’t intend for this to become a major thing, so I’ll repeat my firm belief that his being a junkie is far less likely than just being a maladjusted creep, and drop it.
Yep - remember the Jerry Sandusky interviews from a few years ago? Pretty much no one doubted his accusers after watching those.
I thought it was pretty clearly implied by the article that he had a PR person stashed in the bathroom or a phone call away that he was getting advice from on how to answer the questions and that this was his answers with real time advice.
If so, I think he’s owed a refund.
No, I got that. It just seems like stupid advice. Who gave it to him, some drunk guy he met in a bar? That’s why I suggested he should have had his PR guy in the bathroom.
This is a good comparison. They both seem to think that they did not do anything wrong and are amazed that people even think so. Everything is someone else’s fault and everyone is out to get them.
I was joking when I suggested that but if he was calling his PR guy, that’s even worse. He couldn’t have answered any worse, short of admitting to everything.
The PR guy knows his job is over, maybe have a little fun. He was probably sitting around with all his friends, his phone on speaker, while he said “Look what I can make Whedon do now! I’ll tell him to say he needs to pee when he doesn’t want to answer a question. And he’ll do it!”
I haven’t seen this interview or the one Prince Andrew gave about Epstein, but damned if the reactions to both interviews aren’t pretty much the same.
Which sucks, because I like the Buffy and Angel shows.
Just because someone is a good writer/artist doesn’t necessarily make them a decent person. Why do you think it always comes as a surprise that X is actually a decent guy?
The real question is whether the fact that the creator is an asshole is enough to ruin your enjoyment of the creation. Mileage will of course vary.
There’s no interview to see. This is told to a reporter and the final article is littered with single word quotations, creative paraphrasing and a ton of editorializing. It’s completely impossible to tell what Whedon actually said or what the intended message was. Maybe it’s precisely as bad as the author is trying to communicate, but the why she’s written this makes it impossible to know what was actually said and what the context is in which it was said.
For example:
Instead, he quickly added that he had felt he “had” to sleep with them, that he was “powerless” to resist.
Are those the words of a sociopath? The words of an addict? Or the words of a person with no filter being hyperbolic when completely inappropriate? No fucking clue. Whedon is pretty obviously a bad boss, and he’s definitely said some stupid shit to deflect or defend his behavior…but the way this article and much of the online discussion is contorting itself to frame him as a rapist and a predator is a pretty sad commentary on our public discourse. Did he deserve to be fired…probably. Should he be lynched in a public square…
That article could well be as loaded as you say, but multiple women over the last few years have stated that he was, at bare minimum, sexually inappropriate with them when they were his subordinates, including the underage ones.
Michelle Trachtenberg was 14 when she started on Buffy, 17 when the show finished. Something happened on set once (that no one has talked about), and after that incident the rule was she was never to be left alone in a room with Joss “again”.
That really doesn’t look good for him.
[ETA: Andrew’s was an on-camera interview, Joss’s was for an article, but it was an interview. I’d expect most people to understand from context that “see” is equivalent to “read”.]