Joss Whedon loves strong women because his dad loved strong women.
I’m not gonna lie, I have a thing for Joss Whedon. Because, BRAINS. I am almost zombie-like in my quest for brains, and he’s got ’em. I’ve also got a thing for bald men, but that’s really neither here nor there. But throw in a love of comic books, adventure, silliness and smarty-pants inside jokes, with a hint of shyness and I am down for the count. I’ve been a fangirl of the Joss since Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Like many people who loved Buffy, I loved it because she kicked ass. I didn’t intellectually realize that what I was watching was something of a feminist manifesto. It was just awesome. Then Firefly came around, and I became suspicious that this guy might intentionally be writing incredibly strong female characters, but in a much more fleshed-out way than we’d seen before. His strong female characters were also funny, and sexy and inviting. They were fully-fleshed.
Fast forward to now, we all know that Whedon does, in fact, write these women on purpose. And he gets asked about it over and over and over again. In this great speech for Equality Now, Whedon answers that question, over and over and over again.
He has many great answers, but this is my favorite, because it’s something we can all do, so easily:
“Because of my father. My father and step father prized wit and resolve in the women they were with, above all things. They were among the rare men who understood that recognizing someone else’s power does not diminish your own. … When I created Buffy, I wanted to create a female icon, but I also wanted to be very careful surround her with men who not only had no problem with a female leader, but were engaged and attracted to the idea.”
The whole speech is great, it is totally worth 7 minutes of your time to get a great look at an awesome male feminist who doesn’t pull any punches.
So tell me, what do you think about Joss, the women he writes, and how clear it is that our parents really do shape how we look at gender roles, and gender equality?
I dunno… he’s still quite Hollywood to me.. and Hollywood is still depicting women with a particular look. I haven’t watched too much of the Buffy series but I have watched Serenity. And I still think the women follow along with typical Hollywood beauty stereo types…Buffy looks like the typical tad-over-aged teenager guys dream with her short skirts and low v-necks….. that’s all fine for a vamp show…. and she happens to be strong…. sexy and strong is what sells….. not reality….. not strong women who may not fit the stereo typical sexy image….. and that….I’m afraid…. is skewing things… Read more »
I have to say that if you have never sen much of Buffy and have only seen “Serenity” {which is not entirely accurate at all of the show “Firefly”,which it followed} Then there is no way you can actually make an educated comment here. I’m not trying to throw stones or be nasty,I just have to say that you do not have the information at all in order to make these assumptions,Joss being “hollywood” is a fairly new thing in his career.He might be best known now for the Avengers movie,which I haven’t seen { a little sore,still,that we only… Read more »
Alright Miss Royse get out of my head… I friggin’ worship this man and have only become more obsessed with Buffy since it ended a decade ago. I am surrounded by so many wonderful women and my fear is always that what the media creates will do some serious damage. So much of Joss’ brilliance when it came to creating women roles was his insistence that they contribute to the world in ways beyond how they looked. In addition, the inner resources he gave them and the ways that they were interdependent (remember Willow had to release the hidden slayer… Read more »
Joss is pretty much my creative god. Especially because of the depth of his characters–both male and female. It always amuses me when folks dismiss them as pithy one-liner machines, because it ultimately proves that they simply aren’t listening to what they are actually saying both with and without words.