Tag Archives: Serenity

Joss is Boss

Posted on by under Buffy, Buffyverse, Mythology, Pop Culture

I say again, it’s a good month to be a Whedonist!!

The instant extreme success of The Avengers couldn’t have been earned by any writer/director/creator more deserving.

Seeing the movie was exciting.

Seeing the movie a second time was exciting!

Seeing Joss’s name get splashed around the internet at an ever increasing rate is exciting.

Waking up to see Joss left a message on Whedonesque for us was amazing!!

It’s so amazing, that the number of articles about the importance of the letter are steadily rising.

Here’s a beautiful excerpt:

People have told me that this matters, that my life is about to change. I am sure that is true. And change is good — change is exciting. I think — not to jinx it — that I may finally be recognized at Comiccon . . . What doesn’t change is anything that matters. What doesn’t change is that I’ve had the smartest, most loyal, most passionate, most articulate group of — I’m not even gonna say fans. I’m going with “peeps” — that any cult oddity such as my bad self could have dreamt of. When almost no one was watching, when people probably should have STOPPED watching, I’ve had three constants: my family and friends, my collaborators (often the same), and y’all. A lot of stories have come out about my “dark years”, and how I’m “unrecognized” . . . So this is me, saying thank you. All of you. You’ve taken as much guff for loving my work as I have for over-writing it, and you deserve, in this our time of streaming into the main, to crow. To glow.

And we are glowing! With great pride. For the best damn writer alive in our time. Joss is a fan boy at heart, and he knows how to tell stories. He’s never sold out. And that’s brought him a lot of canceled television programs, but it’s also bought him a dedicated following. Joss has been weaving the current mythology of our popular culture for the last fifteen years. Though everyone may not have seen the series, Buffy is certainly a name recognized by most. And her impact has been deep and wide. What Joss has done for female characters and the empowerment of women – no, not just women, of people – is necessary, meaningful, and timely.

It’s amazing how many interviews, articles, and reviews you can read right now on both The Avengers and Joss Whedon. I must mention some of the best though (all second, of course, to Whedon’s post on Whedonesque).

Here’s possibly the best interview I’ve ever read with Whedon: ‘Avengers’ Director Joss Whedon on Trying to Be More Like Buffy. It’s lengthy and meaty and well-worth your time! And as someone who’s currently juggling many projects (though none on the level of what Joss does), I appreciated this insight/advice the most:

If you try to multitask in the classic sense of doing two things at once, what you end up doing is quasi-tasking. It’s like being with children. You have to give it your full attention for however much time you have, and then you have to give something else your full attention. The secret to multitasking is that it isn’t actually multitasking. It’s just extreme focus and organization.

If your time is more limited, here’s a short Q&A that gets right to the heart of Whedon. I’m going to spoil the final bit for you, and you won’t mind because it’s so damn beautiful all by itself.

Tell us a joke.
Your life has meaning.

Tell us a secret.
Your life has meaning.

Here’s an article I love that came out just before The Avengers release date and highlights the academia of the Whedonverse: Master of the Whedonverse. Speaking of which… five years ago when I was writing my Master’s Thesis on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, despite the growing academic literature, I had to argue why this was worthy of academic exploration. I dare say that now, as I’m expanding on that project as a book with McFarland, the why has become culturally understand. Are all movies and television programs deep and meaningful? Of course. But the one’s that are… they are transforming us on an individual and collective level. They are as powerful as myths. In fact, they’re the new myth. They reflect our time and they give us something to relate to. I firmly believe Joss was a significant figure in bringing this into being. He changed the face of serialized television. And, in the process, he changed our lives.

On a final note, here’s an interesting article on Death in Fantasy Fiction: Why It Makes Us Rage. (Minor spoilers for Avengers coming here… but I won’t give away anything you’re not already expecting… and I won’t name names) Sure, my husband muttered, “Damn you, Joss Whedon!” under his breath when a beloved character in The Avengers met his demise… but here’s what I love about Whedon. We (the Whedonists) know he’s going to kill off characters that matter to us. If they didn’t matter to us, their deaths wouldn’t matter. And he’s not doing it for shock value. In the worlds Whedon creates, the stakes are always high (Buffy lives on a Hellmouth; Angel battles Wolfram & Hart’s apocalypse; the Alliance is out for Mal Reynolds; Dr. Horrible built a DEATH ray; The Dollhouse is attacking the very rights of humanity; The Avengers are facing a demi-god). And how realistic would those high stakes seem and those victories really feel if everyone came out alive and unburdened? In fact, if it hadn’t been for the moving death in Avengers, would our team of super heroes even have become a team? I think Nick Fury made it pretty clear how much they needed that catalyst. We’re drawn to Whedon again and again because his stories are real. The stakes are real. The losses are real. And so are the messages, the characters, the meaningfulness, and the emotion.

I’m proud to be a Whedonist and I’m glad the whole world now gets to see now what he’s capable of.

PCA/ACA 1

Posted on by under Buffyverse, PCA, Pop Culture, Whedonverse

Here’s my first of several posts on the wonderful presentations I heard last week at the Southwest Texas Popular Culture and American Culture Association conference. I hope y’all enjoy! My original idea was to write about every presentation on every panel I went to, but once I got home and settled in and looked at all my notes, I realized I listened to 48 presentations!  Kind of impossible right now to write on ALL of them, so I’m just going to write about the highlights of each day.

Wednesday night at PCA was a delight – there were three Whedon panels back to back to back in one gloriously large, though freezing cold, conference room: Science Fiction & Fantasy: The Works of Joss Whedon; Power and Whedon; and Sex and Whedon.

Alyson Buckman kicked off the night with her great paper ” ‘Ship like this, be with you ’til the day you die’ : Place, Time & Subjectivity in Firefly.” To quote Alyson, it is important to note that “Serenity is a place, not just a space.” She shows us how Serenity is truly home for each of the nine main characters who become, in varying ways, physically and emotionally rooted to the ship.  Alyson discussed the effects that changes in time and place have on the characters throughout the series. In explaining this impact and the power of returning to proper place, Alyson used a poignant example from the episode “Safe” : River explains that when the cows were inside the ship, “They weren’t cows . . . Now they see the sky and remember what they are.”

Then in the paper “Buffy, Bahktin and the Blogopshere: Heteroglossia and Reflexivity in Fan Blog Discussions,” Susan Fanetti touched on the fun world of rewatching and discussing Buffy. She focused primarily on Nikki Stafford’s Great Buffy Rewatch, Myles McNutt’s Cultural Catchup Project, and Noel Murray’s Buffy/Angel Blog. I will admit I’m not familiar with McNutt and Murray, so I couldn’t honestly appreciate her dissection of the work they’ve done. I do believe, though, that she was holding up Nikki Stafford as the ideal model, especially considering that Nikki’s blog contains spaces for old and new viewers, allowing individuals to watch along for the first time and remain spoiler free.  On a related note, I will add that I’ve been re-watching Buffy with the fun hosts of Potential Cast.  I’ll confess it’s more difficult (time-wise) to keep up with blogs (I realize the irony of writing this in a blog), but I always have time to listen to the potentials in the car.

In “Pryde and Prejudice: The Origins of Buffy in the X-Men,” Dale Koontz discussed the appeal the X-Men mythos has always had to outsiders (a group Buffy‘s Scoobies definitely identify with!). She also pointed out that X-Men has always had an inclusion of strong female characters; they have been equal partners to males. Dale then examined the inspiration Kitty Pryde had on Whedon’s Buffy. Sure made me wish I was more well-versed in the X-Men! At the very least, I must read Whedon’s Astonishing X-Men. In her conclusion, Dale argued that the characters from both verses often demonstrate that having both knowledge and love leads to success.  And, furthermore, they show us that “maturity comes with knowledge of loss,” something we’ve definitely seen our dear Buffy come to grips with.

Lewis Call gave the fascinating presentation ” ‘Love Keeps her in the Air’ : Radical Erotic Pluralism in Firefly.” Pushing up against the work of Gayle Rubin, Lewis examined the “honest desire” of the characters in Firefly.  Ultimately, Lewis argued the following for each character: Wash desires Zoe and commitment; he wishes to be dominated, and she wishes to be dominant. Mal is dominant and attracted to other dominants. Inara wants monogomy with Mal, but her dishonesty about this prevents it. Simon has an unnamed and incestuous desire for River, therefore self-sabotaging his relationship with Kaylee. River’s desire is sensual, not sexual; she is most connected to the ship. Kaylee has a carnal relationship with the ship. Book chooses celibacy, demonstrating that the series endorses all types of sexuality, even re-channeling desire. And Jayne? Well, who could he love but Vera??

Finally, AmiJo Comeford also developed a compelling argument in her paper: ” ‘I’m Ready to Wake Up Now” : Pregnancy and the Absence of Female Desire in Angel.”  She pointed out that the three primary pregnancies in the series (both of Cordy’s and Darla’s) were demonic and supernatural, and demonstrated maternity as disjointed from desire.  Even the pregnancy in the season 2 episode “Judgement,” these characteristics are present.

Now I’d like to take a minute to note that I am really moved/touched/amazed by the way we all connect so instantaneously through our shared fandom. It’s like we all have this history of a shared experience, even if we’ve never met. It’s like meeting someone through a mutual friend:  Oh, you know Spike? So do I! To an outsider, this may sound a bit nutty… but I see the Whedonists reading this nodding their heads in agreement.

“We’ve done the impossible, and that makes us mighty.”

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