Great fannish article about Joss Whedon From Guardian UK
Excerpt ~ on Buffy and Feminism:
Whedon... (created) his own universe: supernatural and sci-fi worlds populated by fast-talking, wise-cracking folk whose language has infiltrated our speech (if you find your vocab becoming rather suffix-y – if you've ever used words like "backstabby" or "kissage" – thank Whedon).
. . . What you can't miss about his oeuvre is its empowering depiction of women. Buffy, with her kickass reflexes and witty rejoinders, never needed rescuing by a guy – hell, she once stuck a sword through her boyfriend's chest. Was it hard, I wonder, to introduce a feminist icon into fantasy, a genre more associated with teenage boys with limited social skills? "It's like horror or, back when it was somewhat new, rap," Whedon replies. "It's a fringe art which means you will find the most egregious misogyny in there – but also the most subversive feminism."
Whedon has said before that if anyone wonders why he writes female characters the way he does, they need only meet his mother. Writing a female hero was a conscious decision "but if it doesn't come from the subconscious it'll just be a polemic, it'll reek," he says. "There's nothing worse than someone who thinks they're supposed to add a feminist or racial agenda that they're not invested in." Whedon himself was inspired by James Cameron – "He gave us [Alien's] Ripley and [The Terminator's] Sarah Connor when we desperately needed them, and he wasn't doing it with any stated agenda."
He admits, however, that the status quo may not have improved dramatically. He's keen not to lay a thick judgment on the Twilight franchise, but he admits the films "feel like a reaction against Buffy: 'OK, we liked the part where it was sexy, and there were love triangles, and monsters… We found her a bit grating.'
"Kristen Stewart is kind of captivating," he continues, "she can just stare at stuff and it works because I still want to watch it. But it does seem a bit passive. 'I don't know which beautiful boy to choose between!' is not exactly the struggle that every girl is going through."
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