Buffy the Vampire Slayer was created by Joss Whedon in 1992. He’s told the story of how he came up with the idea so many times and in so many ways, it’s easy to pick and choose the version you like best. He started with a scene where the blonde cheerleader who would be the victim in any other movie turns around and shocks audiences by becoming the hero. He was inspired by comic book everygirl Kitty Pryde. He was inspired other successful shows, such as My So Called Life and The X-Files. Whatever the inspiration, the eventual TV show became a cult classic. Whedon won awards, he gave talks at feminist events. Then public perception of his work started to shift.
It’s hard to nail down the exact moment public awareness changes, and it’s even harder to quantify something like “public perception.” Anecdotally, I have friends who have always thought Whedon was a creep, and I have friends who maintain that he is a genius. Some hold their nose, or try to let his work speak for itself, or embrace his work precisely because they like to consider questionable elements. The indisputable fact is that Whedon has become increasingly controversial, and that changes the tone of being a Buffy fan almost 30 years after the character first debuted.
The Question of Feminism
In 2006, Joss Whedon gave a speech at the Equality Now event. He was asked why he tends to write stories about strong female characters, and famously replies “Because you’re still asking me that question.” For a lot of people, that answer may sound flippant, or condescending, or evasive. But to cultural critics in 2006 that was Whedon’s rockstar moment. Interviewers, reviewers, and commentators repeated it again and again, as if it was Whedon’s mission statement. He saw a world in which people constantly questioned the necessity of powerful women, and so took it upon himself to normalize them. Whedon could only rest when female power became so ubiquitous that it was taken for granted.
But female power in Whedon’s larger body of work always seems to be expressed the same way. Those strong female characters are always really ridiculously good looking, whether they are hero or villain. They are almost always small, and easy to underestimate. Antagonistic forces always try to dominate them, but eventually they triumph through their strength of spirit. “Now that’s everything, huh?” Evil Angel says in the finale of Buffy’s second season. “No weapons… No friends… No hope. Take all that away and what’s left?” “Me,” Buffy answers and catches a sword with her bare hands.
It’s undeniably badass. Strong writing too, I remember it vividly years later. And Whedon’s female characters always get that moment, and it almost always totally rules. River Tam gets it in the movie Serenity. Echo in Dollhouse. Fred in Angel. Kitty Pryde and Emma Frost in Whedon’s superlatively readable “Astonishing X-Men.” The exchange almost always echos that exchange Whedon had in 2006. “What’s the point of you?” the villains ask, and the answer is always simple, and dismissive.
There’s nothing wrong with any of that. But when you start to see the pattern, you’ve got to consider it as an important theme in his work. And when you run that pattern along with some other patterns, well…
The Rise and Fall
Whedon’s career probably hit its highest point with the release of the first Avengers movie. We all remember that movie. It was great! It took everything we liked from Whedon’s earlier work and injected it with 200 million dollars of star power and special effects. It became one of the highest grossing movies of all time. It’s no understatement to say that it totally changed blockbuster films forever.
Avengers: Age of Ultron was not as warmly received. It made an eye-popping amount of money, but it was a more confusing film, with muddled themes. A lot of the criticism surrounded the treatment of Black Widow, one of two major female characters in an ensemble of about a dozen. Some felt her romance with Bruce Banner felt shoehorned in. Many people were also uncomfortable with the way the film handled her talk of pregnancy. Ten years earlier, Whedon was on the cutting edge of feminism in genre media. After Age of Ultron, his ideas were getting more scrutiny than ever before.
Continued belowNot too long after that, he left Marvel and Disney, and the critical floodgates were thrown open. Opinions that had always existed on the fringes, became the mainstream. Rumors from years before made a return. Word of actors mistreated on the set of Buffy was circulating. And then there was the essay from Whedon’s ex-wife Kai Cole in 2017. She forthrightly spoke of her ex-husband’s infidelity, and how he would use his feminist bonafides as a shield. Cole wrote: “Fifteen years later, when he was done with our marriage and finally ready to tell the truth, he wrote me, “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.”
Buffy After Whedon
Does that mean that Joss Whedon is canceled? Does that mean that Buffy is canceled? I would never presume to demand people feel a certain kind of way, but I understand the confused feelings. It’s a complicated issue. But it’s not a new one. People have been reconciling this problem for years- centuries! Richard Wagner was a jerk, but that doesn’t make someone a bad person for liking Apocalypse Now. There would be no Star Wars soundtrack without Wagner’s influence, and Wagner would have been very against the profound anti-fascist messages in Star Wars.
Whedon created Buffy, and whether you think he profoundly believes in its message or that he’s a major hypocrite, it’s still an influential story that means a lot to a lot of people. It means a lot to me. And that’s awesome. Buffy the Vampire Slayer was a TV show created by hundreds of people. It can be used as a piece of evidence to condemn Joss Whedon’s behavior, or it can be looked at as an exciting, inspirational, and yes, feminist story if that’s how you choose to read it.
With all that knowledge though, maybe you aren’t interested in pursuing new work by Whedon. You don’t have to! In fact, if you love the idea and themes and characters in Buffy, but want a different perspective, that’s something you can have! The talented Jordie Bellaire is lending her perspective to the old story, and she’s got some really cool ideas! As time continues to march on and our values grow and change, the way we tell stories should grow and change too. Putting voices like Bellaire’s at the helm of a beloved character is a wonderful way to move forward, learning from the mistakes of the past.
