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'How Come It’s Never Joss Whedon’ Fault ? The Scapegoating of Female Creators in Pop Culture'

Posted by Superheidi | Tue, June 15 2010

There's a pretty neat article on Whedon.info entitled 'How Come It's Never Joss Whedon's Fault? The Scapegoating of Female Creators in Pop Culture' (read here) about how bashers of the last few seasons of Buffy seem to have one thing in common: blaming the women who worked on the show...

Excerpt: 'People who think that Dollhouse was a fiasco blame it on Eliza Dushku. People who hated season six Buffy think it’s all Marti Noxon’s fault. Sarah Michelle Gellar is blamed, often quite abusively, for the decision to end Buffy after seven seasons (yes, she did want to leave the show, but it’s not quite as simple as ‘it’s all her fault’).

This isn’t just about Joss Whedon, but about television and creative work in general. When mixed-gender collaboration does happen, assessment tends to follow a road we’ve gone down before; everything great must have been the men, and everything bad must have been the women.'

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Tue, 06/15/2010 - 18:07

TheCommune

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So true.

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Wed, 06/16/2010 - 10:10

Chris McMillan

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People are really blaming Eliza Dusku for the failure of Dollhouse? Wow. I thought a lot of the problem was the fact that Fox wanted the show to be a "catch a killer each week, while writing the script so Eliza has to dress in something sexy" each week.

In fact, it's not fair to blame Fox alone. The driving narrative of the story was difficult to get going, as most of the "heroes" are actually presented as bad in the beginning, and it took most of the season to see the shades of gray involved in the characters.

Anyway, back to the thread, I find it amazing that people need to focus on one person to pin the blame for a show's demise. It's just not that simple, as too many factors come into play. And the fact that they are targeting women involved in the productions is simply ridiculous.

Sure, Sarah Michelle Gellar was an easy target to blame for the end of Buffy, as she was not interested in being the character any longer. But Marti Noxon being blamed for the grim Season Six? Someone should remind those people that Joss was steering where the season went and approved all the scripts.

I'd like to think this isn't a bunch of people targeting women because of any conscious or subconscious sexist leaning. Maybe it's just they feel Joss can do no wrong (not because he's male, but because he's Joss Whedon) and they have to find a simple target to vent their anger. And it's easier to target one person, rather than the complex issues that contribute to a show's demise.

Oh, wait. It all makes sense now. This is the same thing we Americans do with political discussions, find one person to vent our anger at, rather than acknowledge the complexity of the problem.

But then, it's funny how it's never the white male's fault (unless he's British and CEO of BP). Arrgh, this is all too complex!!! Who can I blame to make things simpler for me?

Maybe Joss?

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Wed, 06/16/2010 - 11:30

Superheidi

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Quote:

I'd like to think this isn't a bunch of people targeting women because of any conscious or subconscious sexist leaning. Maybe it's just they feel Joss can do no wrong (not because he's male, but because he's Joss Whedon) and they have to find a simple target to vent their anger. And it's easier to target one person, rather than the complex issues that contribute to a show's demise

I think you're right there! I don't think people find Whedon blameless because he's male, but because he's Joss Whedon and likened unto a God.

Unfortunately, there are far more men creators of TV and Film revered for their work than their are women. Men attain higher levels of creative power and fandom for being in creative positions in TV and Film (I think literature is the exception - women like Rowling and Meyer have proven that) and so when they don't want to blame the creator, they turn to the people around them for blame, and 50 percent of the time those are women, while 95% of the time the person on top is a male who gets no criticism.

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Wed, 06/16/2010 - 21:25

Chris McMillan

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Yea, that summed up my feelings about how some people view Whedon.

Thinking about it, I wonder if the fans of these shows are the ones looking for someone to blame for the cancellations. Because if they are Whedon fans, well, something is just wrong with targeting the female actors and writers as scapegoats.

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