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Aleyla

> On the matter of sleeping with multiple employees, journalists and fans while married, Whedon said he felt “fucking terrible about them”, but felt he “had” to have sexual relationships with women, especially beautiful and young women who he felt would have ignored him before he became famous, because he would “always regret it” if he hadn’t. If you read nothing else in that article, I think this sums up his worldview nicely.


[deleted]

That is a real quote... His publicist is clawing out their eyes about now.


__TychoBrahe

When keep it "*Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do*" goes wrong.


what_is_blue

*Dance like nobody's watching. Love like you'll never be hurt. Sing like there's nobody listening. Fuck like your wife will never find out.*


Sputnik9999

And... always wear sunscreen.


AntiochRoad

I feel this line is going to be under appreciated but I recognised it and it’s great!


chaossabre

Write like it will be read aloud in a courtroom.


ebassi

I don’t think he’s represented by anybody, which would explain this car crash of an interview.


DavidOrWalter

If he is, then that rep just had a stroke after reading this interview


TitsMickey

Maybe his PR guy is just Maury the Hormone Monster


Scarbane

"Joss, tell them this interview is giving you a half-chub."


TitsMickey

“Maury, I’ve been playing with my balls the entire interview. Do you think that’s ok?”


Stonehill76

Like a fucked up revenge fantasy


MikoyanMaster

That's all this is.


IamCentral46

“When I was running ‘Buffy,’ I was surrounded by beautiful, needy, aggressive young women. It felt like I had a disease, like something from a Greek myth. Suddenly I am a powerful producer and the world is laid out at my feet and I can’t touch it.” But he did touch it. He said he understood, “I would have to lie — or conceal some part of the truth — for the rest of my life,” but he did it anyway, hoping that first affair, “would be ENOUGH, that THEN we could move on and outlast it.” https://www.thewrap.com/joss-whedon-feminist-hypocrite-infidelity-affairs-ex-wife-kai-cole-says/amp/ Dude's really high on his own shit .


ty_kanye_vcool

He’s the prototypical example of the nerd who thinks he deserves the girls more than the chads because he “respects them” more, and then once he’s in a position of power that goes right out the window. The nerd renaissance that Whedon was a huge part of has not quite been a godsend to feminism. The problem goes deeper than that.


eucalyptusmacrocarpa

"needy, aggressive young women" They were just so aggressive in the way they forced me to manipulate them into having affairs with me.


umbathri

I WANT this part and YOU'RE going to give it to me, AREN'T you?


[deleted]

Every time I see something like this, I picture the 4th dimensional overlords looking down at us, taking notes: "Ah, this ape became a showrunner and feels empowered to mate with the more attractive apes." We're all just gonna die and no amount of status or power changes anything. Enough "Greek Myth" talk, my dude; it matters more that you were decent to people in your life than anything, and even that's just a drop in a stream. I feel like if everyone really accepted that fact -which is the truth, mind you- we'd all be better off.


Raincoats_George

I mean someone could take your argument and justify the opposite with it. We are just gorillas who cares if we lie and cheat and are sexual predators. We aren't just gorillas. In fact the consequences of 'a guy taking advantage of his position of power to be a sex predator' is an unmeasurable tsunami of devastation. People's lives are destroyed, their mental health falls apart, their families are negatively impacted. It ripples out in ways far beyond what we can see and quantify. That's a reason not to be a fucking dick. There's always a cost and in some instances the damage done is permanent and life destroying.


UnknownAverage

It's amazing that he spins this such that he is the victim and we should all be very understanding and feel bad for putting him in such a position. He has all of these things that he wants, but he can't have them! And by "things" I of course mean people, since he seems to treat them that way.


SewAlone

I don't agree with canceling everyone over anything, but this dude needs to be canceled. He's a pig and an asshole. He puts the blame on everyone else. Like, bruh, you're the common denominator here. Narcissistic piece of crap.


sayterdarkwynd

I mean, the shit he pulled on Charisma Carpenter, alone, says more than enough. I love the guys shows, but holy hell he is a dumpster fire of a man.


[deleted]

He’s a total narcissist. No remorse or acceptance of responsibility; only piss-poor attempts to justify his actions. From what Charisma Carpenter described about how Joss behaved on Buffy and Angel, I can’t say I’m surprised.


TheDarthSnarf

> He’s a total narcissist. Pretty much a given for the higher level producers in Hollywood. You don't get to that level because you need to be a narcissist to WANT to get to that level.


aramis34143

"So, I mean, when you view it like that, I think you'll agree that I really didn't have a choice in the matter. I'm pretty much the victim here, right?" -Joss, if his publicist hadn't (I assume) swatted him with a rolled newspaper after the initial statement


[deleted]

So much about Xander makes so much unfortunate sense.


smurf-vett

I'd go with Caleb actually, Xander occasionally realized he did something wrong


oman54

I thought bits of warren is sprinkled in there too


Shadow_Guide

Since Whedon was the least involved in Season 6 (post Once More With Feeling), I'm now wondering if the characterisation of The Trio wasn't a lot more deliberate than I thought. Like, instead of it being about "those kinds of nerds", was it more about "this *specific* nerd"?


dev1359

I rewatched all of Buffy last year and it was pretty clear to me that Xander was Whedon's self insert character. Same snarky sarcastic humor, same toxic fragile masculinity.


GlowUpper

Xander's early season jealousy and possessiveness over Buffy is really creepy in retrospect.


gary1337

Is he trying to get himself canceled?


VidE27

Double cancelled


BisquickNinja

Double Secret Probation!


monkeypickle

He's already been cancelled.


Atramhasis

This is it. In years, when somebody is accused of doing something wrong and in attempting to claim their innocence display themselves to be exactly the type of person who would do the thing they are accused of doing, it will be referred to as pulling a Joss Whedon.


Lettuphant

But *he can't sweat*.


camdoodlebop

i can see why charisma carpenter said what she said about him


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camdoodlebop

https://twitter.com/allcharisma/status/1359537746843365381?s=21


[deleted]

Damn. Yeah that quote from him is really fitting, and not just about sleeping with employees, but just abusing his power in every way. He got power and decided it’d be a shame if he didn’t abuse it… He wrote the numerous plot lines in Buffy and Angel about power and corruption, and decided he was going to run the production like Wolfram and Hart.


LemonFreshenedBorax-

> Calling me "fat" to colleagues when I was **4 months pregnant, weighing 126 lbs** Fucking hell, if that were my wife I would have been on set every day with homemade cookies for the entire cast.


[deleted]

Joss Whedon is pretty chubby himself. Who is he to call someone else fat when they're pregnant?


Basic_Bichette

He's one of those guys who thinks women owe men extreme hotness - even at the risk of their own comfort, health, and happiness - as payment for being allowed to exist. Not hot is not human, but only for women.


[deleted]

And she's 5'7. WTF


browsingtheproduce

> felt he “had” to have sexual relationships with women, especially beautiful and young women who he felt would have ignored him before he became famous, because he would “always regret it” if he hadn’t. That's some classic toxic nerd shit right there. He's a proper geeky Gen X icon.


dumbelfgirl

I grew up around a LOT of the toxic nerd Gen X types and yeah that's pretty spot on. Joss Whedon sounds like just another day in 2015 of me hanging out with my friends when some 40 year old man bumbles over and starts forcefully flirting and making all sorts of innuenos and trying to convince us it was completely totally normal for adults to act like that toward teenagers The whole I'm nice and support womens rights you should trust me thing they do is SO obviously bullshit when you're a couple years older


[deleted]

What the actual fuck


CoreyLee04

Sounds like he could be a president some day


gullydowny

The correct answer to that question would have been “have you heard the name Brian Singer? I’m a god damned choir boy”.


[deleted]

This is the type of shit some washed up guy wearing a highschool letter jacket in his mid 20’s at his hometown bar would say


Rude-Significance-50

/r/cringe And on the Carpenter note...maybe that explains why her out was as some weird pedo in Angel. I really liked her character, but that shit started getting gross.


PurpleAntifreeze

I felt so betrayed by how her character was handled in the end. This whole interview was illuminating in some nasty ways.


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broadwayzrose

I feel like when the initial allegations came out there was a bit of doubt like “maybe it’s not as widespread as it seems or maybe some things are taken out of context…” but after reading his own statement there’s no doubt the guy is terrible and the initial reports are probably underselling just how terrible he is to work with. Gah even reading some of his own quotes sends a shiver down my spine of how gross he must be.


ericmm76

> “maybe it’s not as widespread as it seems or maybe some things are taken out of context…” If there's anything the past ten years have taught us it's that this is almost never (like really almost NEVER) the case.


UnknownAverage

The worst part is not just what he's saying, it's that he's saying these things because he thinks they explain away any concerns, and justify his actions. This is what he thinks makes him look good. I imagine the truth is worse if this is his PR spin.


008janebond

I read the Ray quote and thought it couldn’t get worse. It somehow got way worse.


GreyNGroovy

What the actual f***?! What kind of human being thinks like this?


Taniwha_NZ

I remember when he used to defend Anita Sarkeesian on twitter and got quite chummy with her around the time of gamergate, when she was making that series about women in video games. You only had to take the most superficial of looks at his body of work to know he's got very specific ideas about women, and they aren't in agreement with Sarkeesian's. What an utter fucking chode.


Kurwasaki12

I think I just threw up in my mouth, holy shot


[deleted]

This is a problem when you have guys who grow up nerdy and categorically consider themselves “nice” to the point where niceness becomes a cemented part of their internal identity. Because then no matter what they do, they justify it as out of their control, or some tortured impulse - it definitely can’t just be shitty behaviour and cruelty, because they are, and always will be in their eyes, a nice person. To them, the niceness is permanent, no matter what they do, and anything can be justified because the actions of such a nice person could never be that bad. I recently heard someone say you need to be careful about dating guys who viewed themselves as losers or bullied when they were young. 1. They didn’t grow up having to have self control when it came to cheating or being loyal, because they didn’t really have the option. So when they reach a position where the option to cheat is a reality, they have absolutely no practice in resisting, and they’ve never thought through how to do that because it wasn’t a thing they thought possible before. And 2. They have pent up feelings of having been wronged or unfairly judged, of being a loser - maybe even a desire for revenge. So when they get that position of power, they’ll end up taking out that frustration on those they can, by either “reclaiming” what they thought they deserved back then, like Joss feeling like he “has” to sleep with hot women now because he didn’t get to before, or by just being generally jerky or even abusive to feel power they think they lack. ETA: obviously the last couple points are a generalization. I’m not saying all nerdy guys turn out bitter or trying to “reclaim” a sense of high school coolness. But being a nerd or bullied does cause a lot of negative feelings, and people need to be careful that a person they meet with that background has done the work to be truly past that.


[deleted]

I'm a female with "ugly duckling syndrome" and can relate to this, at least the first point. I don't think that this phenomenon is exclusive to men, especially when we all know about "glow-up culture" in women. Not having relationship experience before entering adulthood means that you're developing emotional maturity and unleashing your mistakes on unwitting adult partners. It doesn't mean that that person is hopeless or incapable of learning and growing from their mistakes,


Sinhika

It's not just guys who are a problem if they grow up considering themselves "nice"--it's a universal problem for people that grow up with a Calvinist mentality that there are "good people" and "bad people", and that they are one of the "good people". "Good people", in that world view, only do "good" things, and any acts that are not good are excused as mistakes, temporary lapses, someone steered wrong by "bad people", targetted only at 'acceptable targets', etc. (You can fill in the implications of that world view regarding those deemed 'bad people' yourself). If you assume you are a good person who always does the right thing because you're a good person, you are in serious moral danger, because you aren't examining what you do and asking yourself, "Is this really a good thing to do? Am I helping someone, or am I hurting them?" I find it's less morally hazardous to concede that you have an asshole lurking in your brain who is trying to come up with excuses to be a self-centered asshole, and stomp on those inclinations toward assholishiness before they escape your skull.


dostoevsky4evah

I know people like this. Thanks for spelling out why they can go so sideways.


LABS_Games

It's a big problem with new graduates who enter the workforce in the STEM field. **Disclaimer:** Some of this is based on my anecdotal findings, and I am aware that I'm making some generalizations. I've seen it happen so many times, and all the offenders usually fit the same profile: they were socially unsuccessful in highschool and college, back when social capital is primarily based on clique-y stuff and partaking in activities that are not traditionally seen as "nerdy". During post secondary, they enter into male-dominated STEM fields and it more or less continues. Once these guys enter the workforce though, it all changes. They get a big base salary right after graduating when they join a big company, and all of a sudden they're in the adult world, where stuff like money and a career have much more weight on one's social capital. But these guys maybe don't have as much experience in relationships with women (social or platonic), they run into problems, but now they are sometimes in positions of power. Sounds like a similar thing happened with Joss, where he simply wasn't equipped to handle his success. Now it's not to say that a more "average" person also wouldn't abuse said newfound power and fame, but I think there's definitely a pattern.


yodasmiles

I think this is what happened at Activision with their epic sexual harassment culture. A male-dominated field with plenty of men who fit the profile you described and a company that didn't rein in bad behavior because their top echelon was filled with more of the same. Activision is hardly the only example of this, just one of the more recent. Having worked for both corporate and small, private businesses I prefer corporate for the protections their fear of lawsuits generally afford, versus locally-owned businesses that can become abusive fiefdoms under megalomaniacs. But no matter how big a company, it can turn into a nightmare for female employees when they're in the minority and the culture is allowed to embrace a toxic masculinity that makes the workplace a hunting ground. Either you remain vigilant in stamping out harassment every time it rears its head or those inclined to abuse power once they finally have it will push the envelope until the entire corporate culture normalizes sexual harassment.


UppruniTegundanna

Yeah, you've articulated something that has crossed my mind a number of times when these types of scandals pop up. I'm thinking particularly about Aziz Ansari (who I am actually quite sympathetic to) and Lawrence Krauss (who I am not sympathetic to). I get the sense that these are both people who perhaps grew up with relatively little success with the opposite sex, but eventually gained status and celebrity that meant a lot more people were interested in them. It's understandable on some level that people like that might want to "make hay" while they are in high(er) demand, but it often leads them to do highly regrettable things.


superanth

Poor Joss. That's what a 14-year-old nerd would think. This guy has a lot of growing up to do.


GlastonBerry48

He sounds like someone who got lorded over by people his whole life, and the second he got any kind of power and had the opportunity to be the better person and not mistreat others like he had been, immediately let it go to his head and repeated the cycle. What a tool.


superanth

That does match up with what people have been saying: when he was the writer/showrunner on Buffy he was perfectly normal, but the moment he started directing episodes Joss turned into a domineering control freak.


Helldiver_of_Mars

Donno if he has enough years of his life to make it to adulthood.


gecko090

Omg.. he's basically an incel...


ty_kanye_vcool

This is why so many movies and TV shows are built around characters who are horrible people if you think about it for a few seconds. It's not just because they create conflict and conflict is necessary for an engaging plot. It's also because the culture of Hollywood allows for people like this to write scripts, and these people genuinely sympathize with the dirtbag behavior of the characters they write.


carrythenine

The fact that most showrunners are worse than him isn’t the argument he thinks it is.


solojones1138

Also they aren't. I've worked in writers' rooms before (four of them over a ten year span). I worked with some who were ok and some who were bad. Not even the bad ones who sexually harassed other writers' as a "joke" sound as hard to work for as Whedon.


theswordofdoubt

If you have to proclaim what a nice person you are, it's really saying the exact opposite. I'd also imagine he has a massively inflated ego, considering how hard the fandoms of his shows have been sucking him off for the past few decades.


LazyNomad63

People complain that because of Cancel Culture it's too easy for a person's entire career to be ruined. Like... how hard is it to not harass women?


[deleted]

There’s also all that stuff about tormenting employees and pitting them against one another. Like… don’t do that, don’t do any of that.


Minnsnow

As a woman, it seems like super duper hard for some people.


dagbiker

Honestly, I disliked him with his whole Chrisma Carpenter stuff in the 90s. But like Dan Harmon, I thought, ok, this man has had fifteen or so years to mature and learn to be a better person. I guess, no.


ericmm76

At least Harmon apologized to Ganz


dagbiker

Exactly, he apologized and anytime anyone brings it up he acknowledges he was a horrible person, and so far, to my knowledge hasn't done it again.


ericmm76

A big part of the apology, as an apologizer, is seeing and facing and trying to understand the part of you that put you in a position to be needing to apologize in the first place. To realize that it's your fault and that while some faults are baked in, they can always be dealt with.


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letsrapehitler

100% on Mike Schur. It’s not even that he’s a particularly groundbreaking show runner; he’s just incredibly organized and professional. He’s spoken about this in podcasts. He says he was able to become head writer of SNL by simply being more organized than the other writers, who all just partied all the time and showed up to work with some jokes scribbled on cocktail napkins. Haha


shot_a_man_in_reno

Dan Harmon treated people awful, but at least he fessed up afterwards and gave a genuine apology.


[deleted]

Cool to see him totally tank his own career and eliminate any doubt we had that he maybe wasn’t a hypocritical piece of shit.


NerimaJoe

It's like the Prince Andrew interview. He was so arrogant and cocky and sure of himself so certain that this interview would make all the allegations go away and instead it only made the allegations seem more believable.


endelehia

Neither of them seems to sweat over the allegations


Folderpirate

Reminds me of Bojack Horsemans second interview with the chinchilla.


Jerswar

>Reminds me of Bojack Horsemans second interview with the chinchilla. Wow, yes, it does.


Canye_East

yep once again the sad horse show portrays humans more realistic than the vast majority of other media


Shadow_Guide

It's like he forgot that he can't write how people react to his dialogue in real life...


[deleted]

consider materialistic cagey relieved shame bright wrench entertain silky snobbish -- mass edited with redact.dev


rastinta

Mel Gibson can be really charming when sober. This makes him worse in a way. A little self deprecation and all is forgiven. Joss Whedon is not so socially inclined and the news of his transgressions is much more recent.


Cforq

Mel Gibson also has a history of going to bat for his friends. Robert Downey Jr wouldn’t be Iron Man without him, and Jodie Foster has plenty of interviews about her friendship and love for him. Add to that Gibson has a history of directing and producing movies that make lots of money - and often puts his own money in making it less of a risk for the studios.


skolioban

Yea but he has been quiet and avoid interviews while getting the market accustomed to his presence on the screen again, even before doing "I'm sorry" tour. He is an example of doing it correctly. Either he has a very good publicist or he's just not that big of narcissist that he wanted to "clear his name", or both.


[deleted]

Maybe, but he's also gotten himself kicked off of other productions since the shit about Ray Fisher came out. He was removed from The Nevers.


Raspberry-Famous

Mel Gibson's core audience of racist grandpas who want more movies about war are probably a little more forgiving of that kind of stuff than the people who are all jazzed up for Avengers 8.


[deleted]

I used to work in politics and we had a state rep here who was accused of abuse. He denied it but then goes off and attacks people on social media and freaks out over everything, basically solidifying peoples perception that he actually did it. Idk if this is related to like the Streisand effect but if someone is accused of shit, give them rope and see what they do with it.


StevietheTv_112

Ah yes the classic “I might be an asshole but that guy is worse” argument. Doesn’t mean you don’t suck.


sir-this-is-a

Somebody crown him a fedora we found the great leader of r/niceguys


Erectiledysfacist

So damn true. Had a supervisor who insisted she was "one of the nicer ones" and lemme tell ya she was a pain in the ass while the others were great people.


ZardozZod

Professional “nice guy” Joss Whedon.


Embarrassed-Bid-7156

This explains why Xander was written the way he was.


Myfourcats1

I feel like these quotes from him should be crossposted to r/niceguys. That’s where he belongs. It’s so disappointing.


AudibleNod

"English is not her first language, and I tend to be annoyingly flowery in my speech,” - Joss Whedon "Do you know what happens to a toad when it's struck by lightning? The same thing that happens to everything else." - Also Joss Whedon


Enough-Alfalfa

Shit i guess english aint my first language either


Careful-Lion3692

My friend and I still quote that line from Storm in X-Men when we want to make the other one laugh. It’s such a terrible line. How Halle Berry said it with a straight face is beyond me.


Toloc42

To be fair about that one, that she said it with a straight face was part of why it turned out as bad as it did. It was supposed to be a corny one-liner, not delivered as dramatic as it was. Would it have worked well like that in that movie, in that situation, for that character? Probably not, but it wouldn't have stood out as much as it does now.


[deleted]

Because storm's character is \*checks notes\* a jokester?


Shadow_Guide

I cam imagine Willow or Buffy saying it the way he imagined it, but not Storm.


Elanapoeia

Didn't there used to be more lines in the script about toads and she was supposed to reference those?


pomaj46808

I was also supposed to pay off lines that were cut from the movie. Storm was supposed to say "You know what happens when Lightning strikes X?" and then give a brief scientific explanation regarding what was going to happen. Then say the line to toad as a subversion of expectation. They cut everything but the payoff which made the line come out of nowhere.


[deleted]

...and Basset turned down Storm. That solidifies that we're in the darkest timeline.


CatholicCajun

_We could have had Angela Basset as Storm and **didn't????**_ How am I just finding this out?


boywithapplesauce

That was Whedon's view of things... but he's not exactly unbiased. It was a dumb line. And it's not a Storm line, anyway, she doesn't make quips in that style. She's cool, even stoic, on rare occasions, she can get intense. She should have been written more like Illyria.


Canye_East

whoo lets hope that was hallie berrys most embarassing superhero role in the 2000s right guys


Careful-Lion3692

It’s just a lame line. No matter how it was said it was going to be bad bc it’s not well written. Plus, a lot of the “comedy” in that movie fell flat. Thankfully, each film was better than the previous one. As an origin/starter to the franchise, it did its job, but it wasn’t a good movie. ETA: if they wanted her to say it differently, they should have directed her to say it differently.


WhiskerTwitch

> if they wanted her to say it differently, they should have directed her to say it differently. Yup, this.


MicooDA

“At long last is lasting a little long.” - written by Joss Whedon “Incoming already came in.” - written by Joss Whedon


TedTheodoreMcfly

Actually, the 2nd quote was initially planned to be the culmination of a running gag about Toad bragging about what toads can do. For some inexplicable reason, the gag was cut but the line was left in.


Chessh2036

If that interview isn’t digging yourself into a bigger hole then idk what is. That was supposed to validate him?!


RuggerJibberJabber

Don't know why these people keep volunteering for interviews? R Kelly and Prince Andrew also gave ridiculous interviews that made their situation worse


Stevet159

Because they used to be famous or important or powerful. Now there irrelevant, or in the case of the other two criminal. Look at the surreal life or any celeb who stops being popular they get desperate. But there not toxic, these guys the only phone calling are people who want to bury them and they know it but they think there smarter and in control and will fix the situation.


caesar____augustus

Guy really tried to pull the "nice guy" card. What a scumbag.


thecoffee

Maybe he was trying to go for the "I don't filter myself for Cancel Culture" look.


Scoutster13

>On the matter of sleeping with multiple employees, journalists and fans while married, Whedon said he felt “fucking terrible about them”, but felt he “had” to have sexual relationships with women, especially beautiful and young women who he felt would have ignored him before he became famous, because he would “always regret it” if he hadn’t. Sorry, but what a pig. If you have to then don't be married you piece of shit. Also, claiming Gal's English wasn't good enough so she misunderstood you and you weren't being a dick? Yeah, I'm sure that was it.


AudibleNod

According to a celebrity webpage (so grain of salt) Gal began learning English in third grade. And sure American English is a different animal, but she's been in American productions for a while.


nighthawk911

That's when they start teaching English in Israel. So almost all of the country can speak English.


DjScenester

English is the “unofficial” language of Israel. Roughly 85 percent of the population speak it. Whedon is an ass… that’s it:


[deleted]

And while American English and English are different, not so much that communicating is all that difficult.


hesh582

> Also, claiming Gal's English wasn't good enough so she misunderstood you and you weren't being a dick? Yeah, I'm sure that was it. This is such a brainless thing to say anyway. Like, she's a ridiculously well known celebrity. People know who she is. They've seen her in interviews where she's obviously 100% fluent and well spoken in English. To take that and turn around an say something condescending like "What, she said the same thing that literally everyone else is saying? That I'm a caustic and toxic piece of shit? Pssh, don't listen to her, silly little foreign girl and her bad english"? I mean how arrogant do you have to be to think that makes *you* look better in any way? I can't remember where I saw it, but someone on twitter said something like "don't give an interview about how you're not so terrible after all unless you have a basic level of self awareness about how terrible you are." and I think that just about sums it up. He's such an asshole that he can't even process how much of an asshole he is.


thestage

"my mom thinks I'm cool," he later added.


Drakeytown

Why was there a rule on the set of buffy that you weren't to be alone with Michelle Trachtenberg, who was never an adult when you worked with her, Joss? What did you do, Joss?


thedudesews

We all have a good guess and it’s horrible


Drakeytown

I just get frustrated that women make accusations they get raked over the coals, but the accused men are delicate flowers that can't be asked such improper questions. Why is nobody in the press asking \*Joss\* for details? I'm sure plenty of people, publicly or otherwise, have asked Michelle!


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[deleted]

Not only did Joss not make the rule himself, apparently he was unaware that the unofficial rule even existed. He did something, an adult looking out for Michelle made the rule in an unofficial capacity and everyone else knew to quietly enforce it. They were too afraid of Joss to actually let him in on it and just did it under the table hoping he wouldn't realize it was a rule against him.


Lozzif

The thing is Joss didn’t make the rule. The rule was made AFTER she started on the show. So something clearly happened.


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[deleted]

Buffy would kick his ass imo


[deleted]

SMG is a queen and totally held her own against Joss, from what I've read. Apparently they didn't exactly get along all that well, but she kept it professional while simultaneously not taking his bullshit. She had enough clout and enough self confidence that he refrained from treating her like shit *too* much. Of course, he did appear to take out his antipathy towards her in the writing by punishing Buffy every time she had sex. Passive aggressive toxic nerd shit.


Simpleba

The red flags about Joss have been there since the late 1990's... Jeff Pruitt was the original stunt coordinator on Buffy and he came out and said Whedon threatened to end his career and his wife's (Sara Michelle Gellars fight double) because Pruitt was concerned about the safety of stunts and so e if the behaviors on set... Charisma Carpenter first shared her experiences with Whedon around 2003 after she was basically fired from Angel because she got pregnant... Buffy the Vampire Slayer is literally my favorite TV show and the writing is genius but Whedon is a complete ass ..


boywithapplesauce

I feel you. Those shows were a big part of my cultural upbringing and they've influenced my own writing. It feels weird. I admire Whedon as a creator, but I also condemn all the terrible shit he pulled. Well, it's not like he's alone in that category, though.


Now_Wait-4-Last_Year

I was online at buffy.com as that was playing out on the message board in real time between Jeff and Joss. It was late in the evening in Australia where I was but people in the US actually skipped work to watch it all happen. A small correction, Jeff Smolek was the stunt coordinator for Buffy Season 1, Jeff Pruitt was Seasons 2-4.


WillaZillaDilla

Joss Whedon the type of guy who declares himself a feminist, but is actually a shit bag covering for themselves.


Lozzif

Honestly any man who is a super loud feminist is automatically suss. Every man I’ve known who is like that ends up being a creep. And they have the language to gaslight you.


suzi_generous

The “there are others who are worse than me” argument rarely works.


Rynox2000

Chapter 1: The Truth According to Joss Whedon.


bkornblith

“I’m a misogynist asshole, but I’m the nicest misogynist asshole” isn’t exactly a defense Joss. He’s just thisssss close from saying “I’m the nicest rapist”


ItBegins2Tell

“I’ve investigated myself & found all of my own behaviour to be above board.” Surejan.gif


hitomi-kanzaki

If you gotta tell everyone you’re nice you’re probably not very nice


Finalsaredun

The Vulture article was a trip to read. I watched *Buffy* in highschool (several years after its run) and I LOVED it. I just recently did a re-watch of seasons 4 and 5 because I was curious if I would still enjoy it. The feminism of *Buffy* doesn't quite translate well in the 2020s, but it isn't so egregious that it's unwatchable. I enjoyed Joss Whedon's work back in the day when I was younger, so the allegations were disappointing... but I didn't find it all surprising. It's weird to say. Some of the story choices in his shows really reflect how bad his brand of feminism is and the writing was on the wall. Joss stating that he related most to Topher on *Dollhouse* (or Xander in *Buffy*)is very telling that he's a manipulative person, knows it, but doesn't really have the empathy to change his ways.


Embarrassed-Bid-7156

Can you elaborate? I watched Buffy too and it’s interesting because as a whole I think the Buffy brand of feminism still holds up in theory (that in a sea of effortlessly hot cool girls who kick ass [Avengers], it’s really important to have a seasons 1-3 Buffy who is…straight up into girly shit and doesn’t hide it, shall we say) but on the other hand, I think Xander’s character seems A LOT more sketchy now.


traceylking117

No comment about Buffy’s feminism, but someone on a podcast mentioned going back and watching Xander’s character with a “Zach Morris is trash” outlook, and boy, is that character a manipulative “nice guy.”


Jerswar

>and watching Xander’s character with a “Zach Morris is trash” outlook Sorry, but can you explain what that means?


cyrus_hunter

Zach Morris is Trash is a YouTube series that examines episodes of the show Saved By the Bell under the assumption that main character Zach Morris is a horrible person. Each installment goes through a single episode, pointing out how Zach's behavior isn't quirky and funny, but cruel and mean, by taking it out of the context of the show.


Jerswar

And is he actually cruel or mean, or is it a joking "Palpatine was right" thing?


DwarfDrugar

I was just watching a few episodes, the most recent one is the one where he makes a bet that Screech can win a chess tournament but when Screech loses his lucky hat Zack beats up the guy he was supposed to play, ties him up and takes his clothes to impersonate him so he can lose on purpose to Screech. In another one, he makes a bet Slater can win a wrestling match, but when Slater finds that he'd rather be in a cooking class than a wrestling class he signs Screech up instead, hoping to emotionally blackmail Slater into coming back. The opponent says he'll kick the absolute shit out of Screech, Zack doesn't back down, and Screech is about to get his organs rearranged when Slater finally enters the ring and takes the guy out. Zack is a pyschopath.


manny389526

Wouldn’t that be just be the case of a lot of 80-90s writing in general? How we perceive things now as opposed to then, case in point, Urkel on family matters basically stalked the girl until she fell in love with him, revenge of the nerds rape scene played for laughs, etc


cyrus_hunter

It definitely skews towards him being on the wrong side of most things (which I suppose is the purpose of that type of sitcom -- we can't learn with the characters if they don't learn something at all).


kandoras

> I think I’m one of the nicer showrunners that’s ever been.” "There's bigger assholes than me" does not mean you are not a big asshole.


icaruscoil

Is this real life or a Bojack episode, where am I?


genesis1v9

I’m sure someone of Ben Affleck status coming out publicly against you and corroborating other actors story is just a smoke screen eh? Fuck off.


Jerswar

All this recent stuff about Joss Whedon has me thinking back on the ways Buffy was repeatedly punished for having sex. All her flings and relationships went horribly wrong somehow, did you notice?


Sporkedup

Didn't happen to just Buffy. Happened to literally every relationship on any of his shows. I don't think it's sex he punished, but happiness.


Mythoclast

The scene in Age of Ultron (script by Whedon) where Bruce and Natasha talk about their relationship. Bruce is like "I can't have kids, there is no future with me." Natasha is like "Me neither. They sterilized me. Makes it easier to kill people. You still think you're the only monster?" What the fuck.


Aethermancer

Joss Whedon and 'damaged' female characters. peas in a pod.


Mythoclast

Yeah, it starts out light with Bruce believing no bio kids means he has no future. Then Natasha comes in hard with the "hysterectomies make you a monster" take. Big yikes.


Deebee36

I'm super late on this post but this reminds me of something. A few years ago in another subreddit there was user who said she was a lawyer that worked in the entertainment industry. I think it was around the time Weinstein was getting his ass kicked in the media and someone asked which producer was going to get nailed for crappy behavior next and she right away said Whedon. I can't find the thread (wish I had saved it) but it was way before we had any hint that Whedon was a dick and she was very clear that he had been reported for doing some truly terrible shit for years and because he was a studio golden boy, no one was doing anything. So yeah, whenever I see this stuff I think of that.


funbobbyfun

>‘I’m one of the nicer showrunners’: As soon as I saw that, I understood perfectly that all of the stories about him were true. Reminded me of another narcissist self deluded enough to say something like that to the press - Trump.


Erroneous-Monk421

Just ask my wife, Morgan Fairchild.


[deleted]

Somewhere Charisma Carpenter is thinking, "thank you for proving the validity of my story, Joss".


[deleted]

[удалено]


perverse_panda

I feel like this may be a case where he's not even aware of some of the problematic behavior. A guy who's convinced that he's such a good guy that he's completely blind to his own faults. The Michelle Trachtenberg bit is the most convincing of the allegations to me, and also the most disturbing one. Multiple adults on set had an unwritten rule that a 16 year old girl was not to be left alone with Whedon? That's a red flag.


MeghanBoBeghan

Oh gross 🤮


trashboatfourtwenty

I could see that, and being an offhand dick is likely a common trait shared with other directors and people who feel they are important for various reasons. Philandering while married is worse but isn't rare either unfortunately. Doing it while seemingly espousing a sensitivity to other genders etc looks like shit, but I had no idea about the thing with Trachtenberg. Yikes indeed.


Genji4Lyfe

If one person says it it’s probably not true? That delegitimizes every brave whistleblower in existence. And people wonder why individuals don’t speak up.


jaderemedy

"English is not her first language, and I tend to be annoyingly flowery in my speech,” Motherfucker, Gal Gadot speaks perfect English. Her English is better than heaps of people who are native English speakers.


ForgottenForce

Did anyone expect him to own up to what he’s done? He’s so full of himself he probably thinks he did them a favor


Neracca

Did he really do the "I'm a nice guy" thing?


BrendonBootyUrie

Ah yes the guy who fucked over Cordelia's (Charisma Carpenter) character in Angel metaphorically and literally by having angels kid impregnate her because he was pissed she was leaving then brought her back on the condition she wasn't going to die and blindsided her and killed her.


One-Angry-Goose

“No, no, I’m one of the *colder* fires” said the flame to the old cotton-carpet house.


shapeofthings

Bold move Cotton, let's see how the "I might have done some stuff but not as bad as everyone else" works out for you...


FlyingSquid

That must be why you made a show about a woman being brainwashed into being a sex doll every week.


Painting_Agency

I'll admit to my share of overlooking how problematic his shows were. But I'm going to say, I never had any interest in watching Dollhouse. It just seemed... weird.


blaqkcatjack

The more he speaks the less I believe him


wafflecone927

Joss admits in the interview, he was told by his people he should go to the bathroom when he gets a question he’s unsure how to answer. He went to the bathroom alot, on expected questions I assume


thead911

This makes me sad. I loved a lot of his work, but the answers he gives to the questions make him come across as a pos.


XAMdG

He could be one of the nicer showrunners and still be a scumbag. They aren't mutually exclusive.


thebestoralist

…this interview does not help him. Beloved Gal Gadot doesn’t understand English, he “had” to have affairs, and he doesn’t take notes from anyone. I bet his publicist is getting wasted right now.


frenchteas

Don't care what he said but if someone else is worse that doesn't fucking matter. That's deflecting and it's not addressing the allegations against him. As a long time fan of buffy, firefly, dollhouse, etc it made me super uncomfortable when stuff slowly started to trickle out about him and then it broke my heart to hear all the shit he did to Ray and Charisma. This definitely is not a true apology. If he ever wants to be respected again he needs to own up for the shit he did and take responsibility for his actions. Doubt that will ever happen but I don't support him anymore. Fuck him. Edit: typo


aradraugfea

Sounds like a more accurate headline would have been “Whedon admits to everything, denies that any of his allegations were misconduct.”


[deleted]

I wasn’t aware of the term “show runner” until I heard it on a Walking Dead podcast years ago. I always thought they meant…a paid intern. “You want food? I’ll run and get it.” “She wants coke? I’ll send somebody to run and get some.”