| Thank you Joss Whedon |
[08 Oct 2007|02:52pm] |
I would just like to take the time to thank Joss Whedon for his kind post about how terrible the world is. Joss is obviously so very well equipped to speak out against violence against women as his TV shows and movies are just so woman-loving and full of female empowerment.
Like in Buffy the vampire slayer, season 1 episode 3, where there is this really cool witch that steals her own daughter’s body and starts killing cheerleaders so that she herself can be a cheerleader. Because you know, it is every witch’s dream to become a cheerleader. Actually, it is every woman’s dream to become a cheerleader and of course every witch-mother would sell their daughter to the devil to accomplish this dream. I’m glad you showed the witch-mother in a caring and considerate light and didn’t participate in the demonising of witches or mothers or anything. So empowering. Thanks, Joss.
And another episode I love is season 1 episode 4 (you didn’t waste much time in getting to the really hard-core feminism of your show, did you?), where there is a praying mantis woman, who needs young virgin men to fertilise her eggs (before she bites off their heads). Again, I’d like to thank you for refusing to participate in the demonising of women, because you know you could have really gone overboard with the whole dangerous, sexual, older woman predator stereotype in this episode and well, you just didn’t. So empowering. Thanks Joss.
I’d like to thank you for the show in general for not playing into the older man, younger girl romance thing. You know it would have just been terrible if you had had Buffy, a 16 year old, dating a 241 year old vampire or something. Or maybe Giles, the librarian, dating a woman half his age, perhaps? It could have happened, but no. You are far too principled to have that kind of thing happening in your show. So feminist, so empowering. Thanks Joss. Your overt messages of feminist empowerment were not lost on this viewer.
And getting back to what I really wanted to thank you for, that compassionate post about how terrible you think the world is. You write so movingly about how desensitised to violence ‘we’ have become in this day and age. About how awful it is that women are stoned to death and that this is filmed as entertainment. Oh, and while we are on the topic of violence, let me just tell you how glad I am that you never, ever sexualised violence in Buffy the vampire slayer. I’m so glad you consistently put men and women, who were roughly the same physical builds and height together, so there wasn’t that whole domination/submission ideology in the images. I’m so glad Angel doesn’t grab and shake a 16 year old Buffy in season 2 episode 5. I’m so glad Spike and Buffy don’t bash the shit out of each other before fucking in season 6 episode 9. Thank you, thank you, Joss, for being such a feminist.
Again, you write so movingly about how terrible it is that torture-porn is created and consumed by the desensitised public. Thank you so much for bringing this to our attention. Because, you know, what porn isn’t torture for the sexually abused, raped women who are forced to perform it? You can imagine my confusion when in season 1 of Buffy episode 8 you had Xander wearing a t-shirt with the words ‘porn-star’ written on it. Now, someone who didn’t know you might think that you were using your show as an advertisement for the pornographers or something, but not me. No. I know that you were doing a sweet and noble thing by putting a ‘porn-star’ t-shirt on the sex-obsessed, pervert Xander Harris. But, you know, Joss, sometimes you are like God to me and I just can’t understand what you do. But you can do no wrong in my eyes because you say you are a feminist and your word is law, right?
Anyway, moving right along, I have to say that the words of this most compassionate post still linger in my ears.
A few of you may know that I took public exception to the billboard campaign for this film, which showed a concise narrative of the kidnapping, torture and murder of a sexy young woman. I wanted to see if the film was perhaps more substantial (especially given the fact that it was directed by “The Killing Fields” Roland Joffe) than the exploitive ad campaign had painted it. The trailer resembles nothing so much as the CNN story on Dua Khalil. Pretty much all you learn is that Elisha Cuthbert is beautiful, then kidnapped, inventively, repeatedly and horrifically tortured, and that the first thing she screams is “I’m sorry”.
“I’m sorry.”
What is wrong with women?
I mean wrong. Physically. Spiritually. Something unnatural, something destructive, something that needs to be corrected.
How did more than half the people in the world come out incorrectly?
Ah, the love. Can’t you feel it, women? What’s wrong with women? This wonderful man wants to know. A woman was stoned to death by men while men filmed it. What is wrong with women? A woman was tortured by men in a porn movie. What is wrong with women?
You know, Joss, is so right. Women control the media. Women force men to stone them to death and more women force men to film the action. By and large, women write and direct porn movies and force men to commit atrocious acts of violence against us. Why are we so fucked up? Why are women so wrong? Physically, Spiritually, Something unnatural, something destructive, something that needs to be corrected.
Joss, I confess. I am a woman that is wrong, I 'came out incorrectly' and I need your help. I trust you, Joss. I trust all men to help me, especially the ‘fairly evolved’ men who watch that wonderful feminist activism called: Buffy the vampire slayer. I need to be corrected, Joss. All women do. We need men to stop us from falling victim to our own desires to be raped, beaten, killed. After reading this post, Joss, I understand where I have been going wrong. I need to stop blaming men and start blaming myself.
The next time I see that black lesbians are being locked up by men for defending themselves against men the question on my lips will not be: What’s wrong with men? It will be: What is wrong with women? Physically, Spiritually, Something unnatural, something destructive, something that needs to be corrected.
The next time I see that a woman has been slaughtered by her husband and dumped into the boot of a car. I will ask: What is wrong with women? Physically, Spiritually, Something unnatural, something destructive, something that needs to be corrected.
I suggest that all my sisters reading this do the same. We all need to take a good, hard look at ourselves and ask (in the words of the supreme feminist Joss Whedon): What is wrong with women? What’s wrong with us?
Men aren’t the problem. We are.
Thanks, Joss.
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