[ SECRET POST #3825 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3825 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 61 secrets from Secret Submission Post #548.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 1 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I just don't understand how anyone can have so much sustained rage over something that was never even made. There are so many terrible movies with sexist portrayals of women that have actually been made... and have people defending them.

[(Anonymous)]

It is less rage, and more that some Joss Whedon fans were completely incapable of taking any criticism of him and this script is proof that his detractors were kinda right and they were kinda wrong. The people being angry are Whedon fans who are displacing their anger at being in the wrong about Whedon onto the script itself.

[philstar22]

The haters are equally incapable of taking any positive comments about Whedon. He seems to be one of those people who you either really love or absolutely loath, and neither side is willing to admit that it is possible to have different opinions on him or that he might just be somewhat flawed and somewhat good as a creator.

[(Anonymous)]

I used to like Whedon's stuff, but the Firefly fans really turned me off him with their relentless drive to somehow insert Firefly into every other sci-fi property everywhere. And I also became slowly aware just how badly Buffy was aging as a show and that it really wasn't feminist but just a different brand of exploitation. Whedon's own posturing about being a feminist but not really moving on from the action chick tropes also kinda creeps me out now. I think that his time has passed, he needs to go sit down and be happy just to be part of the scene and be an ally rather than claim to be leading any part of a cause.

[philstar22]

Some Firefly fans do bug me. It isn't a perfect show. That seems to have died off a little, though. I don't see the "inserting Firefly into everything" thing so much anymore.

And I still love Buffy. It is still my favorite Whedon thing. I wouldn't say it wasn't feminist, I would say it was 90s feminist and maybe doesn't reach where things should today. And I do think that in a lot of ways Whedon hasn't gotten past that level of feminism. So I tend to judge his current stuff more harshly than I do Buffy, which I look at in terms of its time where it was unique and very pro-women compared to what else was out there.

But I do think that for a lot of geeky fandom, Whedon is held out as perfect. And for other sides of the fandom, he is completely loathed. I'll always love Buffy and the first Avengers movie and enjoy Firefly and Angel. But a lot of his stuff does have major issues that fandom often won't knowledge.

[(Anonymous)]

It only died off because the Star Wars franchise was brought back to the big screen and when the Whedon fans reacted with their customary lack of subtlety (including, I remember, a petition to recast Nathan Fillion as Han Solo) they got absolutely steamrolled by the rest of the Star Wars fandom and were almost forcibly made to shut up. They tried to do their dominate and suppress thing that Firefly fans always did with their voting and commenting blocks, and it spectacularly failed in the face of the sheer size of Star Wars fandom. They didn't like being shocked into the realization that they'd just been medium fish in a small pond all along

[(Anonymous)]

No. Firefly fans where big fish in a *tiny* puddle. They were loud, yeah, but only in their tiny corner of the Internet. It didn't translate pop culture love outside of their chosen group.

They blamed just about everyone and everything for Firefly's failure, except for the fact that most people just didn't warm up to the show. Basically accusing FOX of sabotaging Whedon and Firefly never made any sense to me. FOX wanted a nice little cult franchise they could milk forever. Turns out Firefly just wasn't it.

Yeah, it probably wasn't going get big enough to menace Star Wars and Star Trek as a franchise. Maybe it could have gotten as big as Babylon 5 was in its heyday, but it just didn't have "it" (whatever "it" is that turns cult shows into franchises).

The thing is, I kind of liked Firefly. I wasn't a fan. I liked it for what it was. A derivative little show that pretty much unironically stole every science fiction trope that wasn't nailed down. I happily watched it like the brain candy it was and didn't think too deeply about it.

But the fandom...*yeesh.*

[(Anonymous)]

To be fair, around that time FOX and every other network were incredibly triggerhappy when it came to cancelling shows after sometimes even one episode was aired, so there was an issue. Firefly just got held up as being the postershow for being cut down in its prime without a fair shake because Whedon was still riding high on the success of Buffy. It probably was one of the shows that did deserve its early cancellation though, and only really got any kind of cult success because DVDs were incredibly new and relatively cheap (compared to VHS) and with a closed out series it made the perfect taster-set for people willing to buy SciFi boxsets but who were intimidated by the sheer size of Star Trek canon. If it had had more episodes then it wouldn't have been a DVD success story.

[(Anonymous)]

Basically accusing FOX of sabotaging Whedon and Firefly never made any sense to me.

Um, they didn't air the first episode. Like, it doesn't get much more sabotage-y than that! It was a show with a huge cast, and a complex universe, all of which needed to be properly introduced in order for the show to gain any kind of narrative traction with viewers. And all of it was introduced, quite well...in the first fucking episode. Which the network took a pass on, in favor of starting with the second episode.

There are very few shows out there that would manage to survive being undercut in such a way right off the top.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm not sure Babylon 5 would have survived long as a network show, either. Maybe Firefly would have been on longer if it had been in first-run syndication instead.

There were issues.

[(Anonymous)]

I watched it live on-air and while I don't think FOX was looking to sabotage it, the network did make a few missteps when it came to Firefly. First, they didn't seem to know how to market it, though I'm not sure I can blame them for that. Second, they showed the episodes out of order, which was kind of confusing - it wasn't heavily serialized, but the narrative and world-building was predicated on previous episodes (it aired eps in this order: 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 4, 5, 9, 10, 14, 1, with 11, 12, and 13 not airing in the original run). Plus it was pre-empted a couple of times.

All that aside, if it had gotten anywhere near X-Files' ratings (Firefly averaged 4.7 million while X-Files' season 9 was 9.1 million), it wouldn't have been cancelled.

[(Anonymous)]

FOX did kinda screw over Firefly though. One of the problems with writing for networks is some networks will not respect the proposed order episodes should air, and FOX did this in spades with Firefly (rendering the arc-based narrative around Simon and River rather disjointed), and has continued to do it to other shows to fuck them over as well.

[(Anonymous)]

yeah i wouldn't say that buffy was without flaws, but it definitely hit a lot of feminist points without blinking an eye, points that we only slowly manage to crawl back towards nowadays.
i absolutely love the first few seasons! and i don't even have nostalgia goggles

[cbrachyrhynchos]

Well, that's because most of the rest of us are bored and have better things to talk about. Try this on for size:

He's a fair director and a fair writer who still gets too many cookies for Buffy and 20-year-old interviews.

[(Anonymous)]

Any amount of energy devoted to this feels like too much. Why do people on both sides love talking about Whedon so much that even his sunk scripts that were rightly never meant to see the light of day become topics of controversy?

[(Anonymous)]

"Why does a leaked script by a famous writer/director for a blockbuster DC property that just came out with a highly successful version of that blockbuster DC property become a much talked-about topic of conversation?"

[(Anonymous)]

I mean, those reasons might make sense to you but they honestly boggle me. I love the movie that did come out, and I'm happy and relieved that's the version we ultimately go, but I'm also acutely aware of the many and varied things that could have gone wrong with this particular property. My only reaction upon learning about this leaked script was, "Phew, another bullet dodged." I still think it's something about Whedon -- something I've never, ever understood, because most of his works have failed to interest me.

[(Anonymous)]

It does not boggle me that people are inclined to talk about famous people who write stuff for very popular franchises, no. I'm surprised that anyone would be surprised about that. Joss Whedon is huge, like him or not. Movies based on comics dominate summer film blockbusters now. Wonder Woman was both a recent release AND huge. I don't like the football and the Superbowl doesn't interest me, but I'm not surprised when it becomes a huge topic of conversation at that time of year.

[(Anonymous)]

It's pretty clear, even just in this thread, that this script hullabaloo is just further ammo for the Whedon fans and anti-fans to fire on each other. All this "It's popular so of course people will talk about it" justification doesn't fly because none of this back-and-forth has generated any good discussion about Wonder Woman at all. It's like, whatever, let's talk Wonder Woman 2 now and how they better not fuck it up and be willing to pay Patty Jenkins all the money to make this movie. But no, it's gotta be Joss Whedon's feminist status. AGAIN.

[(Anonymous)]

You're surprised that a discussion about a leaked script by Whedon that's full of hilariously bad writing and sexism is generating discussion about Whedon's status as a feminist? I'm sorry, this is another one of those "things I'm not surprised by but I'm surprised that someone else is surprised".

You're kind of like a person who barges into an active discussion about pizza toppings demanding to know why people aren't talking about pasta, because you want the conversation to be about pasta. Both are delicious, but... you entered the pizza thread, and not the pasta thread. No surprises there, really.

[(Anonymous)]

My bet was some Whedon stan thought they could make him look cool by showing off what his ~masterpiece~ was.

Only Whedon now looks like a completely out of touch hack writer who would be perfectly at home on Game of Thrones, especially with the scripted male gazey camera pans just like with Daenerys in season 1.

[(Anonymous)]

+1

At this point, everything that can be said on this particular incident has been said.

[(Anonymous)]

And yet ironically, this thread still exists and you're contributing to it. ;)

[(Anonymous)]

Now I know you're just arguing for the sake of it.

[(Anonymous)]

LOL, I'm really not. I just think it's funny when people disagree that something is worthy of discussion, so they ignore the ongoing discussion by people who obviously DO think it's worthy of discussion and claim that no, there's nothing more to be said on the subject!