Joss Whedon got off on making female writers cry, he would ‘boast’ about it

Los Angeles Art Show 2019 Opening Night Gala

When I covered all of the Harvey Weinstein stories in 2017-18, one of the many things which gutted me, over and over, was thinking about the art which was lost, the careers which were destroyed, all because a toxic rapist abuser had so much power. Weinstein was ending careers with a phone call. He harassed and abused women to the point where they left the industry, or their careers were irretrievably altered. I keep thinking about that with Joss Whedon too – how many women writers were denigrated and abused until they left the industry? How many women in front of the camera or behind the camera have seen their lives and careers irreparably damaged because Joss Whedon is toxic?

Last week, Charisma Carpenter told her story about the torrent of emotional abuse Joss Whedon inflicted upon her. Carpenter decided to speak up as part of testimony she gave in Warner Bros’ internal investigation into Ray Fisher’s accusations that Whedon is toxic, racist and abusive. Michelle Trachtenberg backed up Charisma’s story and indicated that she had her own horrible stories about Whedon, including the fact that there was a “rule” on set that Whedon could not be alone with her. Sarah Michelle Gellar offered general, unspecific support to Charisma and Michelle, as did some other people in the Buffy/Angel cast.

Friday evening, Jose Molina chimed in, retweeting Amber Benson’s tweet about Whedon and agreeing with her. Molina was a writer on Firefly, and he tweeted this:

“He thought being mean was funny. Making female writers cry during a notes session was especially hysterical…” Did… did he also try to make men cry, or was it only about Whedon getting off on being cruel and disgusting to women? Judging from the radio silence from the men on Whedon’s shows, I think it’s safe to say that he treated the men really well and he treated all women with cruelty and toxicity.

Marti Noxon was the showrunner for Buffy the Vampire Slayer for its last two seasons, and she tweeted this:

James Marsters – who played Spike on Buffy – tweeted support. Meanwhile, David Boreanz hasn’t said anything and he actually wiped his IG feed of all posts but one.

USA -2018 The premiere of 20th Century Fox's 'Bad Times at the El Royale' at TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, California.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

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72 Responses to “Joss Whedon got off on making female writers cry, he would ‘boast’ about it”

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  1. Millennial says:

    The David Boreanaz IG thing is really odd. I hope he’s not a mega jerk, but I’m not so sure. I vaguely remember him cheating with Tiger Woods’s mistress Rachel uchitel.

    • Darla says:

      He’s been accused of sexual harassment on other sets. Bones I believe. His history is highly sketchy and his wife took back once. My guess is he’s deep in hiding and praying everyone forgets his name.

      • Julie says:

        Didn’t he kick someone in the gut while directing Bones? Why has this sh*t never stuck?

      • Tiffany says:

        @Julie.

        That was George Eads when he was on CSI.

        The woman he did that to, I believe was pregnant or post partum, and he was only suspended for it.

        Yup.

    • Julia says:

      I know it’s bad because it’s litteraly judging a book by its cover, but I’ve never liked/trusted this guy, solely because I thought he had a massive douchebag face. I really liked Buffy when I was young but never cared for his character nor the spin-off as I couldn’t stand him!

      • BnLurkN4eva says:

        OMG! I had the same issues with him on Buffy and Bones and never watched Angel because of him. His face makes me want to see him punched and I’m a really non violent person, it just comes upon me whenever I have to look at him too long. I love Buffy and Bones for the other characters involved, but it’s always a struggle dealing with him in the scenes.

      • yeahyeahyeah says:

        I always thought he was hot, which would stand to reason that he is a horrible person based on my dating track record lol.

    • Kristen says:

      Charisma Carpenter has said that he’s been privately supporting her, especially since she released her statement, but also in the past.

      • lucy2 says:

        He did release some statement in support of Charisma, but when you have to wipe your history to do so…not a good look.
        I agree he’s probably trying to lay low so no one brings up his own bad history again.

  2. Lily P says:

    fed up of men

  3. mtec says:

    There have long been rumours of Whedon being horrible to Charisma. Im glad it’s finally getting the attention it deserves.

    I used to be his biggest fan, and will forever be heartbroken to have been fooled by this man and never be able to appreciate the shows he created the same way. I can no longer say Firefly is my favourite tv show with pride and joy.

    I knew there was something off about him years ago after her revealed that horribly misogynistic scene he had planned for Morena’s character on Firefly (which thankfully never happened), and also that very sexist, male-gazey script he had drafted for WW, and it gives me some comfort in knowing that probably most of the writing we loved on his shows were due to other writers like Jane Espenson, Marti Noxon, Tim Minear, and countless others who are not as well known.

    • Eleonora says:

      It’s really sad.

      Buffy was a very empowering show back then for women and girls.

      Also, Willow and Tara’s relationship was a big deal for the LGBTQ community. I remember people having those love=love banners and putting them on with it on blogs, as a show of support for gay marriage etc.

      Strong women roles were even scarcer between back then.
      Especially the ending of Buffy is very feminist, so back then, he was about the last man I would have thought sexist.

    • milliemollie says:

      There were always rumors that he was mad at her for being pregnant and that’s why he wrote her off the show.
      And he told her that Cordelia would come back for good when she agreed to come back for the 100th episode of Angel and she only found out later that he was actually killing off her character.

  4. Darla says:

    I have so many questions. I think it’s starting to get around that he really did lock Gal Gadot in a room and threaten to ruin her because she wouldn’t film that stupid scene where Ezra falls on her breasts. He without a doubt tortured Ray Fischer, and Momoa attests to this.

    Where was Affleck? Am I wrong in believing he was the most powerful person on that set, and held far more power than Whedon?

    Maybe Ben was really abusing alcohol during the shoot? I honestly don’t know. I’m so beyond horrified. Buffy was my thing. I knew some stuff, but this guy actively HATES women and gets off on wielding power against them, and that I did not know. He’s also obviously a racist.

    • Sunday says:

      I mean, according to Ronan Farrow’s book, when Affleck saw Rose McGowan immediately after Weinstein raped her (they were filming Phantoms at the time), his response was “God damn it, I told him to stop doing that” after which he did precisely nothing to help her or anyone else, so, not exactly a knight in shining armor.

      • Julie says:

        Thank you. I’m confused by why anyone expected anything good from Affleck. He’s not just a company man but also himself an abuser. Let’s not forget he was also among the MeToo accused. I mean it took him 15 years to even say something mild about the racist commentary against Jlo who he purports to actually care about. You think he’s going to rock the boat for Ray? LMAO.

        He’ll hop on board when the public consensus is already formed and play white savior. Speaking of white saviors, never forget that he bullied a respected black historian to hide his slave owning ancestry. Of all the dumb crap to try hide.

        What’s curious to me is Ezra Miller who always presented himself as anti establishment and all about inclusion, going dead silent. You don’t even need to say you witnessed something but you could say something like “I am disappointed to hear about Rays firing for the message it sends to whistleblowers”. It’s all about the money in the end.

      • Darla says:

        It’s hard for me to imagine men just standing around while their female coworker is locked in a room. That’s extreme. I don’t know your experience with male coworkers, but that’s not mine. I can’t get my head around it. Maybe no one was around. I don’t know the circumstances.

        I actually find expecting anything out of Ezra Miller more funny. He did punch a female fan.

      • Robyn says:

        I’m totally sure that Affleck is totally problematic. But I remember on the last season of Project Greenlight, when Matt Damon and Peter Farrelly were horrible to Effie Brown, their Black producer, and Farrelly claimed that she was creating a toxic work environment because she objected to him coming in last minute and trying to undo her work; Farrelly QUIT THE SHOW claiming that he was being abused (textbook white fragility from the man who went on to make Green Book), and Affleck stood up for Effie, said “she is doing her job and I respect her for it.” Said let Farrelly quit if he wants to (and he did). Went against his BFF and fellow white bros. Effie herself afterwards said she was SO disappointed in “Jason Bourne” but pleasantly surprised by Batman.

  5. Laura says:

    I believe Anthony Head also posted a message of support and regret that he didn’t see it. Very disappointed in one of my favorite actors who I followed to his show Angel and watch on Seal. Will be rethinking that ugh. Is this how you want your wife and daughter treated?
    We shouldn’t have to shame you into speaking up. I don’t even care what you say now, because your first instinct was to lie low..

    • whatWHAT? says:

      Boreanz is a serial cheater. so, probably not the best person to speak on harassment of women on set.

      • Lisa says:

        Oh, come on. Cheating isn’t harassment.

      • lucy2 says:

        Lisa, there was a harassment suit against him a few years ago though. It was settled so few details, but the brief description I read of it was pretty awful.

  6. LizzyM says:

    I think David Boreanaz posted a message of support and Charisma replied quite positively to it.

  7. Kalana says:

    So this guy was supposed to be this great feminist and he’s actually the total opposite?

    With Weinstein, we all heard the rumors. How did this guy keep so much locked down so tightly? Because he was nice to men and made people money? That still doesn’t seem like enough to get him celebrated as a feminist.

    • Eleonora says:

      Compared to most shows back then (man=hero, woman=prize) Buffy put strong female roles at the foreground. I think some of his other work is like that too.

      So, he stood out even more as a ‘feminist’ writer than he would have nowadays

    • pj says:

      I’m not even a casual fan but even I knew about him and Charisma. Plus, didn’t his ex-wife write an op-ed or something about him being the worst kind of douche?

      He’s called a feminist because he writes female characters. For the longest time, no one cared enough to look what kind of storylines he was actually writing for those characters.

      It was all out there. Wasn’t a secret. Just google Joss Whedon + feminist. Tons of articles.

    • milliemollie says:

      He was never a feminist. He writes about women that turn him on.
      Yes, Buffy was ahead of its time, but there were a lot of problematic things.
      And his Wonder Woman script is a piece of sexist garbage.

  8. Sunday says:

    I absolutely loved Buffy when I was a teenager, but even then it was frustrating to watch Buffy be slut-shamed and seemingly intentionally misunderstood by her supposed “friends” all led by Willow. Rewatching as an adult, and knowing every awful, misogynistic thing we know about Whedon, I can’t help but think that their treatment of Buffy on the show was indicative of his fury at SMG for not playing along with his Shakespeare-night hangouts (and lord knows what else) and his favoritism towards Alyson Hannigan for doing exactly that. Hannigan’s silence in all this is deafening.

    • H says:

      Do not forget Alyson’s husband, Alexis (Wesley) who also was on Buffy & Angel, plus in other Whedon productions. I won’t watch anything they are in from now on.

    • Kat says:

      “Hannigan’s silence in all this is deafening.”

      This, times millions. My guess is that AH and AA were the favorites.

  9. Cat says:

    It’s so sad especially since back in the day there were tons of rumours about the female cast members of Buffy being difficult and especially SMG and it turns out it was probably all just Joss pitting the woman against each other. Is it true he made SMG do reshoots the day of her wedding? Interested to see what Alysion Hannigan says since she’s his child’s godparent. I can see the male actors being oblivious of the woman getting pitted against each other but as a woman you would know what’s happening. I wonder know if there was other incidents on the set of Avengers 1 and 2 and that’s why he didn’t come back for any more and said he has “exhaustion”. Maybe Disney let him say that to save face? I find it hard to believe he’d not be toxic on those sets then go back to being toxic on set of JL.

    • Darla says:

      I’ve wondered about this too. But the first Avengers really only had Scarjo right? And she was TIGHT with all of her very powerful male coworkers. I bet ole Joss was quite frustrated by his lack of opportunities to abuse people on that set. But I really don’t know. And they ain’t talking.

      • Veronica S. says:

        Scarjo was also an actress with a lot of Hollywood power and support by the time Avengers came around. He wouldn’t have gone after her because she was too powerful publicly and financially. Be a different story if she was a newbie, but she was well established.

      • Darla says:

        Yeah that’s true too, I guess she was by then. It seems so long ago, but it’s not.

    • Seán says:

      ScarJo is also a big deal Hollywood actress with a long illustrious career so not as easy to bully and make feel insecure like the actresses in Buffy who were in their 20s and their first significant roles.

    • Eleonora says:

      I did think it weird the first Avengers film had only one female Avengers, as there are loads of female Avengers to choose from in the comic books.

    • TheOriginalMia says:

      The fact there was only one female Avenger in Phase One had absolutely nothing to do with Joss and everything to do with Marvel’s plans for Captain Marvel and future phases. It’s no coincidence that Natasha Romanov/Black Widow became a more fleshed out character under the Russo brothers. She was strong and kickass in Winter Soldier, with people clamoring for her to be written better in her next Marvel appearance. So, in Ultron, he made her a nursemaid/house mother for the male Avengers, put her in a relationship with Bruce that came out of nowhere, saddled Clint with a family that he didn’t have, and prevented the natural pairing most people thought would continue from the first movie. All of that combined with the clunky storyline caused Marvel to send him packing and everyone was happy for it, but the damage to Natasha was done.

  10. Veronica S. says:

    David Boreanz is sort of a notorious dog in the industry, so I wouldn’t be surprised if he keeps his mouth shut because it’ll bring the heat on him from people who remember his antics during the series’ runs. He’s not really going to provide any comfort to anyone.

    I’m glad James Marsters said something, though I do think it’s so telling how often men don’t see this stuff on sets. It reveals two things: 1.) they don’t know the warning signs/recognize certain behaviors as abusive , 2.) that abusers/predators know to hide their behaviors around people who might challenge them. There was a guy on Twitter a few weeks back who talked about working with the man who wound up becoming Baked Alaska, the conservative DJ who rioted at the Capitol. He discussed how the guy was perfectly cordial to him – a white man of equal power – so he never saw any of his abusive behaviors, but after the fact, a lot of his female and non-white coworkers had come with stories about what a dick he was. His point was that the people you need to use to gauge whether somebody is decent are not the people who hold positions of power in society but the ones over whom they have power.

    • paranormalgirl says:

      Whedon totally hid that crap from Anthony Stewart-Head.

      • jcat says:

        Definitely. When I read Anthony Stewart-Head’s reaction it immediately reminded me of something one of the One Tree Hill actresses said when their show runner was revealed to be a disgusting harasser/abuser. Something along the lines of, she was relieved to learn most of her scenes would be with [older male actor] because [show runner] would never behave like that in front of [older male actor].

      • H says:

        During the Buffy years, didn’t ASH film his scenes then leave and go back to England to his family?

      • lucy2 says:

        Plus he was much older than most of the cast, there was likely a disconnect there, not the same type of relationship that the younger cast likely formed with each other.
        Most of the women seem pretty tight to this day, I see Amber and Charisma have done some fan events together recently.

  11. Merricat says:

    Writers rooms are definitely a boys club. I’ve known plenty of men for whom abuse passes as reasonable criticism. I have a lot of words to say about it, but all of them are profane.

  12. Liz version 700 says:

    This guy sounds insanely gross.

  13. FancyHat says:

    For those keeping track:

    David Boreanaz posted a public comment and CC thanked him for backing her since Wednesday and before.

    Others who recently commented their support publicly:
    J August Richards (Gunn)
    Nick (Xander)
    Julie Benz (Darla)
    Eliza (Faith)
    Danny Strong (Jonathan)
    Tom Lenk (Andrew)
    The guy who played Warren

    The people who haven’t said jack squat in support of CC, SMG or Michelle are:

    Alyson Hannigan (Willow)
    Alexis Denisof (Wesley)
    Amy Acker (Fred)

    They are the ones that suck

    • H says:

      Amy, Alexis and Alyson are all tight with Whedon and want to be in future productions of his. (If his career gets beyond this). Because let’s face it, Amy and Alexis don’t work all that much without Joss backing them. Alyson has HIMYM money. They all can rot.

    • TheOriginalMia says:

      Alison & Alexis are godparents to one of Joss’ kids. So, I doubt they will say anything. Amy is another fave. I doubt any of them will say a word.

    • Kristen says:

      I don’t think it’s fair to judge them for not speaking up so far. We have no idea whether or not they themselves – particularly Alison and Amy – are victims of Whedon’s abuse, and speaking about their experiences could be more complicated than we know.

  14. FancyHat says:

    Yeah I am judging the hell out of all 3 of them for staying silent

  15. Elizabeth says:

    Cancel culture — destroying women who don’t kiss your ass — has ruined women’s lives for so long. It’s beyond time to say we are going to start canceling horrible destructive men. I don’t feel any sympathy for Joss Whedon, just horror and disgust. I loved his shows and now I feel like I was so stupid.

    • BnLurkN4eva says:

      You were NOT stupid. How could you know who he was from simply watching and enjoying his shows. If that makes one stupid then there’s a whole lot of us who fits that description. Also, Buffy was honestly a great show for it’s time and it was understandable that lots of people, women especially tuned it. consider, it was whiter than white and I’m not and it was one of my favorite shows, which tells you it had an impact. Also, don’t forget his own wife was fooled about him for years according to her op-ed, so truly, we couldn’t have known.

  16. LaUnicaAngelina says:

    James Marsters also had an encounter with Joss Whedon during his time on Buffy. He talked about it in a podcast last year.

    “I came along and I wasn’t designed to be a romantic character, but then the audience reacted that way to it. And I remember he backed me up against a wall one day and he was just like, ‘I don’t care how popular you are, kid, you’re dead. You hear me? Dead. Dead!’ And I was just like, ‘Uh, you know, it’s your football, man. OK.’”

    https://www.google.com/amp/s/screenrant.com/buffy-vampire-slayer-joss-whedon-spike-reaction-james-marsters/amp/

  17. TheOriginalMia says:

    Not surprised he abused the female writers. With everything coming out, it’s less of a surprise, but a continuing disappointment. The evidence of Joss’ warped view of women was always there. From how he tied in Buffy’s first time with Angelus’ emergence & his murders. He punished Buffy and told us all it was necessary for Buffy’s growth. He demeaned her and had the males in her life judge her for being the Slayer. From Giles to Xander to Riley…their bad behavior was because the women in their lives weren’t who they wanted them to be, so he allowed them to be shitty and the women to pay the price. And for years, we, the audience, excused it, even though, we knew something wasn’t quite right about the continuing theme of the show. And the brutal attack on Buffy by Spike, which did nothing but punish and shame the actors for their chemistry and the audience for liking the pairing. It was all some sick shit that traumatized the actors and everyone who watched and loved the show. Joss should be shamed and exiled, but I suspect he’ll be back in a few years. All will be forgiven, but the actors (female & male) and writers, he abused and terrorized will bear the scars to their psyches and careers forever.

    • Genessee says:

      Have you seen Dollhouse? Human sex trafficking and forced prostitution? Whedon has some skewed views dude…

      • dj says:

        Yes. In hindsight, this all makes sense! I tried to watch ‘Dollhouse’ and the WTAF? No way! In hindsight, some of those ‘Buffy’ story lines were really abusive to Buffy especially. Not to mention, the weird ‘I love you. I hate you’ storylines between Buffy and Angel.

  18. Lizzythe2 says:

    As a fan of Buffy I am shocked about these revelations. It’s admirable that these women were able to continue to do their jobs in the face of such abuse.

  19. VanJam says:

    As a from the start fan of Buffy, I was always perturbed by the cult like adoration of “Joss”. It was Buffy and SMG that hooked me in and I could never understand the hostility of much of the fandom towards the main character and actress. The success of the show had to be credited to the genius of the show runner. I admired SMG for living her own life snd it was clear to my friends and I that JW had favourites, who would gather at his for pretentious sounding poetry slam style sessions. Just look at how the main character was a peripheral character for much of the last two seasons and don’t get me stated on “Joss” giving viewers what they need not what they want.

    I don’t think this article is fair to SMG. It refers to her supporting Michelle T when Michelle T, who has been close to SMG pre-her time on Buffy, thanked and retweeted SMG. That statement read to me as SMG publicly washing her hands of JW, which came as no surprise to me.

    • A says:

      There was such a weird expectation among fans, even women, that the actresses on the show should be “grateful” to Whedon for “giving” them the opportunity to portray these characters and be on the show, bc without him, they’d be getting parts for badly written female characters or w/e, so they should be happy that a man is deigning to “provide” them with something better, when they could be stuck with so much worse. There was zero examination of that among the people who stated as much, especially how very not empowering it was to expect women to “put up” with abuse from a man bc he’s “providing” you with a job and a salary and fame and what not.

      And like I said in my comment, this is absolutely something that Whedon utilized to get away with his shit for a long time. “I don’t treat women poorly, because I’m a feminist. Those women are just lying bitches. Don’t they understand how much I’m doing for their benefit?” I still remember the Mary Sue article that came out maybe about a decade ago now that critiqued Whedon’s shit and how there were literally thousands of comments berating the author and anyone who agreed with them that they were wrong, Buffy was a hugely revolutionary show, etc etc. etc. It’s really nice to finally see the tide turn a bit, tbh. People, especially his fans, made a looooooot of excuses for him, and that has to be thought about too.

  20. BeGoneOrangeCheeto says:

    Amy did post something in support of all those who spoke out, just for the record.

    • lucy2 says:

      That’s good. Just looked it up, and she’s saying she didn’t experience that, but is supporting those who did and are speaking up.

  21. A says:

    I honestly never understood how Buffy was seen as a “feminist” show. Maybe a part of this is that I skew a bit, so I don’t know. It could be that I saw enough well-rounded women on TV to compare and know Buffy fell short. But I never really bought into the hype. Not only did Whedon’s writing on Buffy not strike me as feminist, Whedon himself, and his fans, were more than a little smug for my taste. It was very much the pinnacle of, “Not like the other girls,” feminism tbh.

    Also, I really, truly do not believe the bar for television at the time was actually as low as people insist it was when it came to the portrayal of female characters, to the degree that Whedon was hailed as particularly refreshing on this. I really don’t. I think it does an enormous disservice to the thousands of women who created, wrote, and directed both TV and film, who went out on a limb against all odds to bring nuanced portrayals of women of all types onto the screens. That was the other thing that really irked me about the whole hype around Whedon. He was lauded for bragging about how he was doing something that he claimed no one else did before him, when that simply was not true either.

    Plus, and this might be a really petty grievance, but Buffy was a seriously cringey show with AWFUL, canned dialogue. I remember watching it and just…being blown away by how corny it was.

    Then there was the fact that both Firefly and Dollhouse were some of the most weirdly fucked up shows I’d seen too. ESPECIALLY Dollhouse. The opening scene of the first episode I ever watched featured an Asian woman character getting brutally beaten up and raped. Her memory was “wiped” after the incident so she had no recollection of it, and she was sent back out to spend time with her abuser who did that to her repeatedly during the episode. I was floored by I had expected empowered female leads, and this was just the total, completely awful opposite of that.

    Then there’s Firefly. The backstory of the show was an analogue of the American Civil War, except Nathan Fillion’s character fought on behalf of the show’s version of the Confederacy. Then there was the godawful way Morena Baccarin’s character was treated, the casual slutshaming and whorephobia which was explained away as just “banter.” The plot line Whedon abandoned for that character involved her getting sexually assault bc “character development”, and also for the sake of the male lead’s man pain. Then there was the seriously, SERIOUSLY weird anti-Asian racism and appropriation of Chinese culture that was sprinkled all over the show that just never got questioned. Again, none of it seemed to me like it was particularly feminist or visionary. It just seemed like a man who had an awful lot of hangups about women.

    Finally, there were the fans. The more die-hard ones wouldn’t let you breathe a negative word about Whedon without putting you down for it. And let’s make absolutely no mistake on this: Whedon 100% cultivated and utilized his status and public image as a means to continue disrespecting and abusing women without being called on it. It gave him the power, the credibility and the shield to continue doing that, bc he knew that people, especially other women, would defend him at the expense of discrediting the victim. If anything, Whedon is a good example of how little the culture as a whole had progressed. It was the same shit, just with a different, performatively woke label slapped onto it, and people bought it for a long time.

    • FF says:

      I have to agree with this, as someone who watched his shows and started side-eyeing the things he wrote on Buffy as early as S1. It always seemed to be his episodes especially that had me notice something sus and take a mental note.

      First of all, I keep hearing that people found BtVS empowering but for which women? The treatment of WoC on that show was awful. PoC – when they were visible all, seeing as it’s Whedon’s habit (with rare exceptions proving the rule) to hire them as white-passing as possible or just cast them white and and say they look kind of PoC – were disposable and or mocked for their differences. The last straw for me was having the Original Slayer made mute just so Buffy could mock her hair.

      Kendra was arbitratily killed because JW claimed the second slayer was meant to die every season – an idea he only reconsidered when said slayer was played by a white actress.

      Then there was the endless slut-shaming.

      Only “women” (girlish waif-types) who fit Whedon’s narrow phenotype of those he considered worthy were “empowered”. The others were “procession victims” for the others to save, who were frequently placed in rapey scenarios. Particularly, if you were curvy in any way he seemed to quadruple down on the rapey subtext as if he had a massive madonna/whore complex. CC and Morena got the brunt of that issue. If you were older, “fat”, then were soon to be dead or evil, or both.

      You could also see how he “got” at actors via the way he wrote their or others’ characters.

      I had to tap out on watching and even then I was always interrogated by fans of his if I said I didn’t like him or his writing. His fans are the ones who gave him the “feminist” badge and he rode it for all it was worth knowing it would let him get away with shady writing and transgressive treatment of actual women.

      I have to corroborate that until the Black Widow incident his stans would be all over you for the mildest critique, and let’s not forget that Whedon himself is reknown for not being able to take criticism: he is petty as hell against people he thinks wronged him (he also puts it in his writing) and nothing that goes wrong is ever his fault.

  22. LillyfromLilloeet says:

    As always, grateful that people are speaking up.

    I hope he never works again.

  23. Juniper says:

    Joss was not a Feminist. He commodified Feminism and used it as an opportunity to get ahead. I know that now, and it disappoints and angers me immensely.

  24. Dlc says:

    I loved the show Buffy, although it got weird towards the end. The Buffy spike plot was disturbing. The willow magic as drugs plot line was cringy. Years later when the avengers did the agent coulson avengers playing card thing, I thought “that is pure Joss Whedon cringe cheesy beating the viewer over the head with his theme” crap. Tried to watch Dollhouse, straight up horrifying and not good.

    Man, some of those Buffy episodes were SO good tho. The Body? Once more with feeling? The silent episode? Sigh. I hope all of his victims find peace.

  25. Me says:

    I’m still pissed that Willow never got called out for RAPING Tara.

    I’m looking back at all the times I heard “Joss hurts us, because he loves us.” On the Buffy message boards, we called him “God” and I referred to him like that too, but I’m glad I said that was bullshit back then too. I hope all the WOMEN who shouted down other women on message boards for pointing this out, sit down, and think about how he played them so hard.

  26. Me says:

    Looking back it, Whedon’s petty gross shit explains A LOT of the shit story directions on all his shows