Criticizing your white nerd hero isn’t the same as calling for a public lynching. Then again you know that, but perhaps you need to some photos of real lynchings to jog your memory.
If the final article that badly misrepresents the tone and content of what Whedon said in the interview, if it really is the mendacious hatchet job you suggest, then Whedon has a slam-dunk libel case. But… crickets.
We should all continue to hold our breath.
It doesn’t look good for Whedon. But given that the bulk of the stories against Whedon involve him being a raging asshole and treating people like crap, it seems likely that this was the situation with Trachtenberg.
[Moderating]
@Chingon, you’re making this way too personal. Chill, now.
That’s probably it, but it’s always bugged me that nobody, including Michelle, will give ANY details. What bugs me about that is that the only reason I can come up with for this apparently voluntary gag order is if what he said or did is legally actionable due to her being a minor at the time and the agreement is that everyone keeps it under wraps, possibly to protect everyone’s livelihood. Which makes me feel squicky. Even if it was at Michelle’s insistence, it bothers me not knowing what went on.
Wow, that’s not at all my take. My take is that he treated her, a child, with the same vicious mockery that he treated adults, and the adults were like, “It’s one thing to be an asshole to us, but Christ almighty she’s just a kid,” and informally made this rule to protect him from saying something to her that would scar her in a way that teens don’t always come back from.
Yeah, for years I held out some small hope that Whedon would tell his side of the story and it’d make him come across as not an asshole. I got half my wish.
This is why we can’t have role models.
That’s the thing though, why if it’s just him being a dick does nobody just SAY so? I guess I’m just suspicious (trauma and abuse will do that to a person) but seems to me that if they DID lie and say that then he’s got plausible deniability (See, so and so said it was just me being an asshole, nothingburger!) and all leverage is lost. And if he DID do something legally actionable and others covered it up there could be repercussions to THAT and so everyone just keeps quiet. It’s weird, so it bugs me.
I’m not sure if there was a specific incident with Michelle Trachtenberg one-on-one, or just a recognition that as a minor on set, she needed more protection than normal from someone who was potentially problematic. It could easily have been a completely separate incident that prompted their decision.
Thing is that accounts of the interaction are remarkably consistent that Joss had ONE closed door meeting with Michelle that left her shook up and led to the “no Joss alone with Michelle” rule. Something about the story just pings my radar.
This is about it. He’s a jerk in a lot of ways that people who were nerdy losers and then get rich and idolized are often jerks, but some of the shows he made were great.
I used to really hate people like this, who took other people’s wide-eyed trust in their genius and violated it. But now I see it with more nuance. There’s more than one fragile ego swirling around in this story – I mean, do you know any actors? Wheedon was caught up in the flood of success and if he ever had any tools for humble self-examination, he was surely not encouraged to keep them sharp. I don’t pity him but I’ve observed this scenario too many times to completely blame him either.
If I had some sort of beef with my boss I probably wouldn’t want to air it out in front of the entire world. To the best of my knowledge, nobody has accused Whedon of any form of sexual harassment. He didn’t offer actresses meatier parts for sleeping with him, he didn’t threaten anyone’s career if they turned him down, and he wasn’t handsy with anyone who didn’t consent to it. His relationships on set might have been inappropriate, but nobody has accused him of sexual harassment or assault. He’s just a raging asshole which is bad enough.
The mistake is to assign “role model” to someone we do not really know and is not modeling a role we are in. He was not a role model he was an idol.
To paraphrase whoever wrote it for Charles Barkley, Whedon did not get paid to be a role model, he got paid to put eyeballs on screens.
Which does not excuse being a dick to those around him. Or viewing females in that environment as opportunities that, by some sort of regressive-adolescent logic, he would later kick himself for not taking. He was part of perpetuating a culture too willing to admire and reward the “prick who gets results”.
Yeah, I’m not getting the whole “hero worship” aspect of this at all. I mean, he’s a talented writer with a knack for coming up with cool concepts, and for writing good dialogue. And apparently from the perspective of the viewing public, a successful showrunner as well. But that’s all.
I think a lot of people are projecting their love for Firefly, Buffy, Angel, etc… and the characters in those shows onto Whedon as if he’s some sort of writing and showrunning Santa Claus whose output reflects some kind of inherent goodness within him, and then being devastated when he’s not as awesome of a person as his creations or the characters within them.
Tim Minear should get more credit anyway.
Since it’s Armchair Psychoanalyzing Sunday (a special day I just invented)…
Whedon strikes me as someone with a form of ‘bantam rooster complex’. He was a geek and probably pretty unattractive in his youth, and probably got his share of bullying and social condescention, and girls probably didn’t give him the time of day.
Now he’s got money and power, and he’s getting back at all those people who did him wrong. In his mind, anyway. And maybe out to prove something. And also maybe attempting to carry out the kind of fantasies he had back when he lusted after young women who would have nothing to do with him.
Those themes appear often enough in his work for that to be a credible analysis. Thinking of that one episode of Buffy where the guy invents the girlfriend robot and his subsequent full embrace of the incel lifestyle. That had a lot of knowledge of the personality type in it.
To be clear, my intent isn’t to accuse the author of making things up. What I’m saying is that it’s terrible journalism and that readers shouldn’t use the content as evidence. Specifically, evidence of what Whedon did or did not say since that’s not provided in anything close to complete or raw form.
See above, I’m not suggesting that specifically. However you’re committing the same fallacy that is used against rape victims. Michelle Tractenberg has made no specific public accusations, refuses to answer questions about her suggestive statements and has filed no charged nor has she even talked to law enforcement. There’s lots of potential reasons for that, but we probably shouldn’t assume that her lack of action is an indication that she’s lying. With Whedon, there’s lots of reasons he may or may not want to publicly attack article or the published with a libel suit. One may be that he has no issue with it…but it could also be because his lawyers have told him that the case is unwinnable due to lack of evidence or his PR people have told him that the best thing for him is to less this blow over. Or of course, he may still plan to file charges later.
The point being, you can’t use his lack of action as an acceptance of the narrative.
It’s also possible that they feel that the innuendo can be much more damaging in the absence of details than the actual events would. Considering most people (this thread included) talk about him with the same tone and adjectives they use for Harvey Weinstein I think is evidence that this is effective.
As a hypothetical, if the Trachtenberg statements are completely accurate there’s a couple plausible things that could have led to it. One, Whedon cornered her in a dressing room and tried to pressure into a sex act, or two Whedon made a slimy but not threatening comment about her tits or something gross. Both are obviously bad and totally unacceptable in any situation but especially when you’re the persons boss, but the former is much more severe than the latter. Without any details reactionaries tend to jump to the worse conclusions.
Based on his track record, this sounds plausible and is even less damning than the above hypotheticals. Yet in the absence of details, it’s best that we don’t assume anything.
Some points that I have always thought about.
- Fox came to Eliza Dushku and told her they wanted to make something with her. Her choice was that Joss Whedon make a show for her and they agreed. I noticed when this all kind of was building up, she commented to Carpenter, "“Your post was powerful, painful and painted a picture we’ll collectively never un-see or un-know. Thank you. I hadn’t known it and I won’t forget it.”
She must not have had a bad experience with Whedon.
- Amy Acker, who was on Angel and also returned for Dollhouse, also seem to have no issues with Whedon. She said she had a good professional experience, which is why I guess she returned for Dollhouse.
Anyway, none of this dismisses the claims. But certainly some people seem to get along with him and don’t find him totally terrible.
I wonder if he has worsened, especially with Avengers being a massive hit. He sounded terrible on Justice League. He should have never gotten involved with that project.
Well, Eliza is a pretty decent actress. Charisma less so. Easy to imagine Eliza managing to stay out of the firing lines. And while unprofessionalism is never appropriate, Carpenter seems to have made herself a production problem with the haircut and ill-timed pregnancy. Of course, pregnancy is one of those things that every business needs to work around but easy to see how that might cause some already overflowing frustration to get ugly.
Whedon is not the first producer/director to be accused of being a bully and an all-around piece of shit to work for. Most of the bigger names in movies have or had this reputation over the last 30-40 years. That doesn’t make it acceptable, but it does make it unsurprising that an up-and-comer like Whedon might repeat it. And yes, Actors often suck as employees…so pretty much a shit show all the way around.
Is she? She was widely considered the worst part of Dollhouse and appearing in it appears to have stalled her career. Her wikipedia page has the final section of her career labeled “2009–present: Dollhouse and other work”. She went from one of Fox’s cultivated rising stars to someone mostly appearing in fairly inconsequential projects.
Anyone who is successful in their given field is going to be a role model. They’re especially going to be role models for those who want to work in that same field. People are going to look at the folks who are successful and they’re going to emulate them. Charles Barkley was right that nobody hired him to be a role model but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t one.
There were people for whom Whedon’s work became a core part of their identity for some reason. I remember when Firefly was airing, several friends and acquaintances of mine could not shut up about that goddamn show. Every time we’d get together, the conversation would inevitably turn to Firefly which was kind of annoying for me because I didn’t watch it until it came out on DVD. Did I enjoy it? Yes. Did it change my life? No. But for some of my friends this was an important part of how they socialized with other people. They jumped into the fandom with both feet and made a lot of social connections they still have today. I agree, I think a lot of people project their love of what is produced with their feelings for the creator.