Joss Whedon stepped in dog poop yesterday. Ugh. Whedon is a self-described feminist and a political liberal/progressive. He supported Hillary Clinton publicly last year, and he often uses his social media to pop off about politics. Yesterday, he decided to make a joke about Paul Ryan and Donald Trump, only the joke absolutely did not work.
Everything started with this tweet from Paul Ryan’s @SpeakerRyan account:
Advocacy is not limited to adults. These Wisconsin teens shared some powerful stories with me about their fight against childhood cancer. pic.twitter.com/VJ0eQDXu7U
— Paul Ryan (@SpeakerRyan) April 27, 2017
This alone is worthy of comment and mockery. The girls in the photo should not be mocked, but Paul Ryan? Absolutely. This is the guy who dreamingly recalled that he’s wanted to kick sick people off Medicaid since he was a frat bro “drinking from a keg.” This is the guy whose last health care bill would have made it too expensive for these two young women to get healthcare coverage because their cancer would have been seen as a preexisting condition and their insurance companies would have raised their rates under the GOP bill. The joke-take on this photo should have been “Paul Ryan meets two young women who won’t have health coverage next year, just as Ryan planned when he was doing keg stands when he was their age.”
But that wasn’t the joke that Joss Whedon went for. Whedon went in a different direction. This is what Whedon posted (and has since deleted):
Like, I understand where Whedon thought he was going. The joke possibly would have worked if the photo had been of Paul Ryan and Betsy DeVos or something. But this? No. Whedon was hammered on Twitter and the Deplorables basically threw a “Joss Whedon is over” party. Whedon took down the tweet and posted this:
So I tweeted something that inadvertently offended everyone except the people I was trying to offend. I'm sorry. I'll be quiet for a bit.
— Joss Whedon (@joss) April 28, 2017
Is Joss Whedon “over”? Was his joke that unforgivable? Or does he just need to go dark on social media for a few months?
Photos courtesy of WENN.
They’re probably just still mad that Buffy never made an appearance at the end of Angel.
I guess this means Trump won’t sign an executive order mandating they make another season of Firefly, and I should withdraw my petition, sigh…
I love Joss to death. This was an oops.
The joke was in poor taste, but it does seem like he meant to kick up (meaning the target of the joke was Trump), not the girls/women.
Right.
X100000. I guess even Joss makes mistakes (besides season 2 of Dollhouse, I mean). But he’s done so much good and he apologized quickly after realizing his joke could be/would be misinterpreted. The sentiment was correct about Ryan’s utter callousness and lack of humanity.
Totally agree. Team Josh forever. Everybody has a misfire now & again. No biggie. And I agree with Bettyrose, the sentiment was correct. How can Ryan not see the hypocritical nature of a photo op with these kids who probably wouldn’t be alive if they became ill under his plan? Ryan is a stooge.
Gross.
I mean, if you want to make a point, highlight how that if their cancer return(God forbid), that would be a pre-existing condition and Paul Ryan supports being denied treatment for that.
Actually, Ryan’s position goes beyond that. Because they have a pre-existing condition, which may lead to the need for treatment for other related issues (chemo & radiation & surgical side effects show up years, sometimes decades later), Ryan supports denying them access to insurance outright and throwing them into “High Risk Pools” that have exorbitant costs, deny treatment completely for the first year, lead to bankruptcies and, very often, death for lack of treatment.
I wonder if Joss just saw the picture and didn’t know the context. I agree with you guys. And even if they weren’t cancer survivors, they were still WAY too young.
These kids were there advocating for healthcare. It was really crappy of Whedon to undermine their purpose by insulting their looks. And to say his comments were “inadvertently” offensive, b&tch, please.
Word. He should have known better. You don’t like Paul Ryan, fine, there are other ways to express this without demeaning teenage cancer survivors and how did he not think of this before? Shouldn’t a self-proclaimed feminist have more awareness than this?
Megan,
I agree it’s a weird misstep for a man with such a strong awareness of misogyny in Hollywood, but I genuinely believe he didn’t intend to insult their looks. It was a statement about Paul Ryan’s (and the GOP’s) attitude about women.
I love Joss Whedon… However that joke was bad and he apologize. I forgive him and hope he doesn’t do any joke like that again. Other than that, I love you Joss Whedon and still speak out in social media or in general.
It is in poor taste, and it wrongly includes young women who should not be the target of such politics, but it does highlight the mentality of this stupid administration. The past 100 days has seemed like a crappy Greek Rush that just needs to end.
I think it highlights the mentality of Joss.
Actually it doesn’t. And that’s the reason Joss fans are forgiving him – the way his shows portray women and the way he has always hired cast for his shows speak much more to me than one dumb tweet. Was it wrong? yes. did he apologize? yes. should he be careful in the future? absolutely. But I will not throw him under the bus for one mistake because if I did that everyone in my life, myself included, would be unforgivable.
Except it is not one mistake. He has done this before but because it is someone people here don’t like or they don’t like the message, it hasn’t gotten a lot of attention, been cheered on, or excused. He was rightfully called out for this and while I am glad he apologized, I am troubled by the knee jerk reaction he had to this picture was to attack the girls in such a sexist way.
This train wreck of a political situation is making us all lose it. Joss apologized. Now can he please send Buffy over to take on Paul Ryan, who is a bona fide blood-sucking demon from hell!
This is not the first time he has attacked or made these kinds of comments about women who do or say anything he does not like. Look at what he said about Nicole Kidman. For a self proclaimed feminist, he sure makes mysogonistic remarks about women he does not like. Posure.
Do you mean poseur?
Yes, I apparently can’t spell it.
Clearly he thinks his “male feminist” card gives him the right to demean women whenever he pleases and get away with it. Misogynist is as misogynist does, Joss.
Stupid tweet (that most of us are guilty of doing) from Joss.
It’s clear to me that his intent was to roast Ryan, but it totally misfired and ended up making the wrong person(s) the butt of the joke. And he realizes that. Taking into consideration the context of who Whedon is, what he believes in, and what he fights for– I’ll chalk it up as a mistake and move on.
He erred on this one, but he’s a great ally. I still support you, Whedon.
At least he apologized, I guess? Back when women were upset about his treatment of black widow in the last avengers movie, he was all mansplainy about how wrong women were for being offended because the mighty 90’s-era feminist Joss Whedon couldn’t possibly write a woman poorly.
I mean, I do feel bad for him in a way because feminism has evolved since Buffy and he’s taking a while to catch up, so it must be confusing. Or something.
go dark, lay low dude.
I get what he was going for – these men only really see women as sexual objects – but it winds up inadvertently hurting those women in the process, so yeah, he needs to own that.
I like Joss Whedon. I’m glad he apologized and I want to forgive him. But I’m troubled that he didn’t understand what was wrong with publically mocking (or at least appearing to) the physical appearance of two young girls (or anyone) on the internet.
A better human being would have know it was wrong before sending the tweet. It says a lot about what kind of person he is. And no, people, creating a bunch of Mary Sues doesn’t give him a pass for being a hateful dirtbag to others.
Agreed.
People who never make mistakes rarely do much of anything at all. Whedon screwed up and apologized…it happens.
BTW, this is exactly why I am not on Twitter.
It was tacky and inappropriate to drag those two girls’ appearances into it, but I get what he was trying to do. And any of the Deplorables who are criticizing him for this are just putting their own hypocrisy on display once again.
Totally agree. Always love your comments Otaku Fairy
Shut up and give us a Batgirl that is not patronizing or makes women looks like victim/angels. I hate those movies that are all about some Hollywood filtered feminist angle. They are offensive, silly and simplistic.
Poor taste and inappropriate but he got called out and responded in exactly the right way.
Opportunity missed. The takeaway was about how their lives would be negatively impacted by what he and his cronies want to do with healthcare.
However, it’s more offensive that Ryan used them to help him appear a tad human.
Gross Whedon’s been over since Flop of Ultron
LOL no, he’s not over. The public has too short of an attention span for that, and men can get away with a lot more than a woman could. I see his intent, but it was a stupid tweet.
No, not over. It was dumb, but I think he’s prob a good person who, like you said, made the wrong joke. Instead of a joke, he could have gone the route you went. Paul Ryan really is a monster. You’re absolutely correct that he wants to take these benefits away..oh and don’t forget, taking the free breakfasts & lunches away from kids builds character. Ass! These girls should be pelting him with rotten tomatoes.
He has a history of mocking women’s looks. And frankly a lot of his work is extremely problematic. Simply putting a woman in a lead action role doesn’t automatically make something feminist. It’s a nice start, but a lot of his writing and plot choices let his shows down massively in that regard.
He didn’t even apologise here, just not so subtly blamed everyone else for not understanding his brilliant joke and flounced (which he also has form for, dude cannot take criticism).