Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Post
  • Reply
I AM GRANDO
Aug 20, 2006

Joss Whedon is a bad man who cheated on his wife for 20 years before abandoning her. drat him for bringing sexual perversion into the world of science fiction.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

I AM GRANDO
Aug 20, 2006

Whedon’s great skill was to toy with but ultimately respect and perpetuate the ironclad tv conventions of pre-prestige era tv. He’d toy with naming a character in the opening credits and the killing them in the first episode because doing that would be breaking the rules of tv. Yet he could never truly innovate or leave the rules behind.

He was truly made for the 90s.

I AM GRANDO
Aug 20, 2006

When he was trying to sell people on being in Dollhouse, was he just like “it’s a lighthearted sci-fi adventure show! You play a braindead whore who sucks and fucks in every episode!”

I AM GRANDO
Aug 20, 2006

It led with sci-fi horny instead of following the proud sci-fi tradition of shoehorning horny into an adventure premise.

The apocalyptic future did have Scott Farkus from Christmas Story as a main character, though.

I AM GRANDO
Aug 20, 2006

Roman Reigns posted:

“She doesn’t like it when I call her a WHORE,” quips the hero as she stares at him indignantly.

Yeah even back when I liked the show I thought that was awful, and it made no sense that she still stuck around anyway.

It’s because they were secretly in love with each other. Isn’t that so sweet?

I AM GRANDO
Aug 20, 2006

I liked that twitchy sweaty guy who knew Mal from the war and was smuggling organs. He had some good Adam Goldberg energy going on.

I AM GRANDO
Aug 20, 2006

Still obsessed with powerful young women and their dainty feet.

I AM GRANDO
Aug 20, 2006

It’s weird that we live in a culture so hosed up that it’s impossible to know whether an old man who only makes tv shows about waifish young women who are powerful and also frequently brutalized and raped is the result of personal pathology or just usual tv market forces.

But I feel like if you put all the women he likes to cast together in a lineup, you might notice some similarities that seem a little uncomfortable. Probably that’s also true of the women he hired for production and the writers’ room.

I AM GRANDO
Aug 20, 2006

frogge posted:

I kinda want to try the board game.

The tabletop RPG for it was a hot mess using a weird d6 system. I ran a campaign that went for just over a year until the party basically crashed and burned as any ttrpg campaign may after a long run.
Also the game book/player handbook or what have you has Chinese phrases in the back so that players can get really into the Firefly spirit and setting but after maybe the first few times any faux-Chinese was used, it went to a very cringey place very fast.

In fact that's one of the sins of the show that I never really got over.
On one hand it was cool of Jo Sweden to have English and pidgin Chinese be the spoken languages in the show and setting since we're led to his vision of the future dominated by spacefarers and colonists from mostly an anglo and a sino starting point, but on the other it was really hackey because it was almost exclusively swear words and disses used to get around censors and it never went any deeper than that gimmick. Then for being a post-civil war reconstruction tale but set in space there was a major lack of Spanish.

Also weird that a show filmed in Vancouver just couldn’t seem to find any Chinese actors to cast. Just bad luck I’m sure.

I AM GRANDO
Aug 20, 2006

Also this may not be entirely fair of me, but I can definitely see him being the type of guy who berates and criticizes his wife for not being feminist enough or diagnoses internalized misogyny when she disagrees with him.

I AM GRANDO
Aug 20, 2006

well why not posted:

T2 and Aliens are both very appropriate to analyse as feminist works. True Lies too but It’s been a long time.

Compared to Josh’s nonsense whore/Madonna/amazon archetypes it’s fuckin baroque.

Anyways back to firefly bullying:

Remember when it accidentally made Adam Baldwin really popular with nerds and he used his platform to pump gamer gate?

His real name is Joe Hill Whedon. That he doesn’t go by that baller loving name shows that he is an enemy of the people and a devil.

I AM GRANDO
Aug 20, 2006

well why not posted:

T2 and Aliens are both very appropriate to analyse as feminist works. True Lies too but It’s been a long time.

Compared to Josh’s nonsense whore/Madonna/amazon archetypes it’s fuckin baroque.

Anyways back to firefly bullying:

Remember when it accidentally made Adam Baldwin really popular with nerds and he used his platform to pump gamer gate?

When the show was on Fox had a message board for the show, and I guess to get people engaged they had the actors post on it and make threads and poo poo. Adam Baldwin posted the most out of everyone and there were hundreds of shocked replies when he posted about how George W Bush was a real American man who was going to liberate Iraq and he got so pissed off about Firefly fans being liberals that he quit posting. He even chased down one poster on the John Doe message board that Fox also made in order to berate that person.

I think the other actors just posted the minimum number of required times and like posted banana bread recipes. Nathan Fillion posted about his favorite comic book store in Edmonton, Alberta.

2002 was weird.

I AM GRANDO
Aug 20, 2006

OSU_Matthew posted:

After reading through the thread, I’m still not sure what the hate for the show really is, other than the terminally online being edgy?

I guess Joss Whedon really isn’t a great person for various personal reasons? But I guess I don’t really pay that much attention or honestly care about people’s personal lives?

Curious what the thread’s hot take on Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog is...

Unions are good, so it’s ok.

I AM GRANDO
Aug 20, 2006

Are there still fans?

I AM GRANDO
Aug 20, 2006

Sleeveless posted:

One weird vestigial remnant of Firefly fandom is the meme of Fox always cancelling and mistreating their cult sci-fi shows. Like we got five seasons of Fringe and a third season of The Orville is on the way and I still hear the odd hurfing and durfing about how Fox never gives new shows a chance.

I think that was more about the Friday Night Death Slot, which started in the mid 90s and lasted until probably Fringe. Firefly was just one of its more prominent victims.

I AM GRANDO
Aug 20, 2006

Tulip posted:

Firefly and Buffy both got about 5 million viewers, which was perfectly fine for UPN, but Fox wanted much higher numbers (Fox's top show was pulling >20M if I'm reading Nielsen right). Whedon needed to get much, much worse in order to make a major mainstream success.

Well I was certainly never home to watch it, though at the time I was more interested in where John Doe would go after its first season.

I AM GRANDO
Aug 20, 2006

QuarkJets posted:

Imagine if you were arguing on the Something Awful forums about what a moron Donald Trump is and suddenly an account named Ted Danson shows up all "actually Donald Trump is an even bigger moron than you can possibly imagine, let me give you some personal anecdotes", and later that night you see an interview where Ted Danson is like "Oh yeah I love posting in GBS, I personally paid for Lowtax's new cyberpsine, by the way do you have stairs in your house?"

Adam Baldwin was the first of the sunglasses-selfie-in-his-truck’s-driver’s-seat-avatar posters, so powerful that he started a decade before twitter even existed. Big divorced dad energy.

I AM GRANDO
Aug 20, 2006

BSG has aged poorly because it's extremely of its time and reflects a very specific cultural moment, like all good science fiction.

Is there any decent science fiction that can't be immediately dated to a specific cultural context?

I AM GRANDO
Aug 20, 2006

mind the walrus posted:

The "I want to show my poly friend how woke I am" Companion stuff is the worst

I think this is best explained by him being a repeat john to high-end sex workers and really believing that they weren't just tolerating him in exchange for money/were actually doing it to pay for law school etc.

I AM GRANDO
Aug 20, 2006

It seems to me like Whedon’s star has fallen massively in the last five or so years. Is that actually true, or just a result of my own echo chambers?

If it’s true, maybe he’s being abandoned by his protectors in the industry.

I AM GRANDO
Aug 20, 2006

What's this Warner investigation? Is he going to get sued or blacklisted or something? I'm sure there are tons more people with stories like that to tell.

I AM GRANDO
Aug 20, 2006

"Ok, Catwoman, right? But get this: she runs a brothel. With like a bondage basement."

I AM GRANDO
Aug 20, 2006

“You see, the series bible explains in more detail, but basically I made sure the show has both kinds of women. There is “mommy but sexy” and “sexy but not mommy” and I made a little chart with all the characters on it. Both do high kicks, so you’ll want to keep that chart handy to tell the difference.”

I AM GRANDO
Aug 20, 2006

"So we'll have some lighter episodes too, of course. Bat Mite for example will come along and make Batgirl grow to giant size. She'll be a giantess towering over the city and Joe Sweden as well, of course and-- Yes, Marti we've been over this. Her clothes and especially her boots and socks will be torn apart because clothes don't grow when magic transforms you into a perfect giant goddess who's embarrassed to be nude and so, so gigantic with her statuesque form just towering over everyone. But she'll also feel like mighty and, um, empowered? Yes! It will be empowering, which is my intention."

I AM GRANDO
Aug 20, 2006

mind the walrus posted:

My phone pinged me with some Variety expose on all the Whedon crap, saying they canvassed about 40 people who worked on the shows and basically found nothing new that was terribly juicy. Seems to be exactly what it looks like-- a case of a privileged princeling being a douche because he could, leveraging verbal abuse on employees he didn't like because he knew he could get away with it, and using his "We're the feminist show!" reputation as a shield to keep them from rocking the boat. The only thing that stood out was that they couldn't get full details on what Tracthenberg meant specifically beyond "He's not allowed in a room alone with [her] again" besides "there was an inappropriate verbal exchange" which could honestly mean a lot of things and none good.

In the end I mostly skimmed it because it had all the air of a sleazy afternoon TV movie that deglamours the franchises down to all but their very brightest moments, stripping the long-dead corpses for carrion. You can practically feel the thick SoCal evening sun drenching the mood and making everything feel wet and sticky. Kind of lurid, but ultimately very pedestrian and common. A tale of sleaze and corruption older than its participants, betraying every pretension to progressivism the show ever attempted to solidify. In some ways I actually think that does a bit of harm, as when this stuff was private or conjecture the shows did do some objective good for some people, even if it was based on faulty people and typical show business lies.

I liked the Cosby Show when I was a kid, but I sure don't miss it now and I'm glad to see it gone. To each their own, but I don't think I could watch Whedon's shows again because I'd spend the whole time thinking about how they're just an alibi to let him get away with horrible things.

I AM GRANDO
Aug 20, 2006

It’s worth noticing that Morena Baccarin, Jewel Staite, and Gina Torres did not show up. I don’t know what they had going on in 2012, but it seems like at least one could have made it if they really wanted.

I AM GRANDO
Aug 20, 2006

Sanguinia posted:

I thought that was just the Orientalist Sinophilia running through Firefly generally. "Concubines of incredible financial and political power that move in the circles of the elite and bend them to their will through feminine whiles and ruthless intellect IN SPAAAAAAAACE."

(I remember how much praise Firefly got for that American/Chinese 'cultural fusion,' and its really quite funny on a rewatch how utterly superfluous it is. Throwing random Chinese words out and having a smattering of white people with Chinese clothes or text on their shops in an otherwise clearly American universe is not a 'cultural fusion.' Is there even a single asian person on that show, let alone one of Chinese ethnicity?)

(You want to see a setting with some actual east-west cultural melding going on, watch Outlaw Star)

Well, where do you expect them to find an Asian actor in...[checks notes]...Vancouver?

I AM GRANDO
Aug 20, 2006

Did we mention that in the episode where Morena Baccarin contemplates what appears to be a suicide pill, Joss is sure to explain in the dvd commentary that it’s a special poison that will kill anyone who has sex with her, and that the scene in that episode was meant to set up a later episode where the ship is attacked and the rest of the crew come back to find it full of dead marauders and a weeping Morena Baccarin with her clothes all torn up because she beat them by taking the sex murder pill right before they all raped her, thus selflessly saving the crew by allowing herself to be brutalized to a comical degree?

I AM GRANDO
Aug 20, 2006

mind the walrus posted:

Eh, I'll be honest and say that part of it is that while Dollhouse's cast had some ringers in Enver Gjokaj and Dichan Lachman, they weren't conventionally white enough and the leads who got the lion's share of screen time were the very definition of "LA C-List." Meanwhile Firefly had Juilliard graduate Alan Tudyk, alongside anchors like Nathan Fillion, Gina Torres, Summer Glau, Morena Baccharin, and even Adam Baldwin who all had real chemistry on-screen together.

Plus the story of Firefly's cancelation is way more romantic. Dollhouse was always "oh poo poo an Eliza Dushku project... and it's Whedon? Ok I guess. Oh look it's already on the Friday night death slot. Lmao this concept loving sucks and every week Dushku is dressed up like a prostitute." Firefly was pushed as this "wait wtf?" thing with a huge budget in primetime slots and then shunted around the schedule in a way that made for a compelling rumor mill, even decades after the fact.

I will not stand for this Olivia Williams erasure. If only she hadn’t been cast as the head pimp in a human trafficking operation.

I AM GRANDO
Aug 20, 2006

Animal Friend posted:

Whedon used to stage regular Shakespeare readings at his house and invite all the actors on his shows to them. it's the reason he eventually filmed a version of Much Ado About Nothing at his own home.

I used to think off of Firefly, where the cast apparently got on great it was wierd some skipped out on it.

Now it makes me wonder just how much those who stuck around in Whedon's inner circle knew about his abusive behaviour. Is there a reason so many skipped out? Also important to note that before the current scandal he was famously awful to Charisma Carpenter on Angel, yet still maintained deep ties to some cast members from that.

So yeah, even that long time association, outside of the longevity of Firefly itself is a little questionable.

It is kind of telling that none of the name-brand talent from any of his shows ever participated, like maybe that was how he found a pool of people who felt they couldn't afford to refuse from which to draw his victims. It definitely seems like a way to divide a large group of people against each other as well--separate some off and tell them they're special while giving the cold shoulder to others.

I'm sure that if someone has been in Hollywood for a little while, they learn that "come over to my house and we'll read Shakespeare" is more likely than not a sex thing and something to be avoided if they have the star power to not depend on one person for their future work.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

I AM GRANDO
Aug 20, 2006

I love that devil mask guy who goes "anna wanna wanga!" Better than anything in Firefly by far.

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • Post
  • Reply