Does anyone know more about this?

[quinara]

Because I can't really be arsed to dig into it, but apparently Joss has been chased off Twitter by The Feminists, who it seems were no longer to be bought off by Joss being Joss and writing retrograde claptrap but nonetheless having the women punch people while doing it. And then there's a side narrative about the Marvel execs ruined his creative vision, which may or may not be related. I know many of us are Joss fans but at some point I actually started hating him, so I'm finding myself unbelieeeeeeeeeeeeevably amused!!!!!!!!!! Has the world woken up to his poor little baby auteur games? Have mainstream standards for women's plots actually managed to shift in the last twenty years? Is this the start of the revolution? Or will the fanboys just take this as another reason to act like dicks?

Not even drunk. But this is hilarious. No, I haven't seen the Avengers and don't plan to... Spoil me however!

ETA: This is quite interesting, and I think raises an important point about the sheer volume of messages about Avengers AoU to Joss - it makes you question if whether this was really a hounding that can be compared to that orchestrated against much less major figures. It also seems like the Whedon line on Twitter is that it's part of his job, and when the job is done he generally leaves it alone. Not trying to excuse anybody's behaviour, but I'm starting to see this slightly as another pitched battle between the stans and the haters, with the casus belli (as usual!) a rather ambiguous event...

ETA2: Fab conversation people; I will be back this evening. Just going to add that the man has spoken. From which we learn that people shouldn't blame the critics, for one will always be cursed for one's art and daring to have a political point of view, even if those militant feminists do actually generally bring other feminists down because if Joss says he's a feminist then he will always be helping the cause no matter what. It's backhanded graciousness for everyone!

Comments

[snickfic]

I am amused by your amusement. I too am pretty over Joss as a creator, even though I still have great love for certain of his creations (Buffy, basically). He's clever and funny, but the actual stories he's interested in telling do not interest me, and often they're actively regressive. But the general vibe I get from everyone whose opinion I care about was that Age of Ultron did a lot of things really badly.

Do you follow lettered on Tumblr at all? She's been posting a series of angry reviews of the movie as well as collecting other people's angry reviews, all of which are

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I am amused by your amusement. I too am pretty over Joss as a creator, even though I still have great love for certain of his creations (Buffy, basically). He's clever and funny, but the actual stories he's interested in telling do not interest me, and often they're actively regressive. But the general vibe I get from everyone whose opinion I care about was that Age of Ultron did a lot of things really badly.

Do you follow <user name=lettered> on Tumblr at all? She's been posting a series of angry reviews of the movie as well as collecting other people's angry reviews, all of which are <a href="http://letteredlettered.tumblr.com/tagged/age-of-ultron".here</a>.

[quinara]

Ooh, thanks for this! Many of these reviews seem rather too long for me to get my head round, but I'm going to keep hunting through them (and figuring out how to read things on Tumblr...).

As for Joss, I fear I've got to the point I actually hate his writing always. It started pretty much when Chosen aired, but these days even when I forget which episodes are his I can still spot them a mile off. And I hate his smug commentaries. And I don't know how in heaven's name I rationalise this with being such a committed Buffy fan, but the adoration of him generally makes me despair for genre entertainment as a whole. Sigh!!!

[snickfic]

Man, I am sorry that formatting went so wonky. :P

Anyway, yes, Tumblr is the devil.

I can't say I'm put completely off his Buffy episodes (except I never thought 7.01 was ever anything but stupid), but the commentaries are not good. The one for Restless in particular was bizarre, because that episode is so rich with layers and he... didn't seem aware of half of them? I read much meta with much better insight than he had to offer.

But yes, like you, I manage to be Grrrr Joss most of the time but also I still love BtVS with all my heart, despite its many flaws.

[quinara]

No worries - I figured it out...!

Blergh, Lessons was such a let down after the fallout of S6. I love S7 and I'm still bitter anyway! I think with Restless he must have just chickened out of actually trying to explain anything about what he thought might be happening. To be fair to Joss (or not), I think his skills lie so much in telling people what they want to hear that commentaries aren't a natural medium with him, because he has to decide who he's spinning it for and doesn't really know. And so he ends up with jokes about Willow and Tara and red curtains and just makes himself sound like an absolute cretin, which he surely can't quite be.

[snickfic]

That is interesting about Joss maybe not knowing who his audience for commentaries. I will say that comment about the curtains made me ugh at the time although I wasn't even really sure why and continues to make me ugh now. :P

(Ironically, my designated feminism icon is from that episode...)

[ruuger]

And then there's a side narrative about the Marvel execs ruined his creative vision, which may or may not be related.

No! Never! :D

That, seriously, is the one thing that made me dislike Joss most - that nothing is ever his fault. It's always Halle Berry saying the line wrong.

(also, while I have no idea what he's like as a real person, I think that Joss' public/online persona is a total douchebag, which has to a degree ruined my enjoyment of even those of his works that I like)

it makes you question if whether this was really a hounding that can be compared to that orchestrated against much less major figures

Yeah, that is interesting. When women complains about getting rape threats online they're just being over-sensitive, but when Joss leaves Twitter after a couple of nasty tweets, he's a victim of persecution...

[snickfic]

This whole comment makes me mad all over again! I will never be over that quote about Halle Berry. But also this:

When women complains about getting rape threats online they're just being over-sensitive, but when Joss leaves Twitter after a couple of nasty tweets, he's a victim of persecution...

>:(

[quinara]

ZOMG, that business with Halle Berry; I'd completely forgotten about that. (And still don't quite understand how as the director he was so removed from the scene that it was impossible for him to give her a note before or afterwards about how the line was 'meant' to be.)

His public persona is that of a complete douchebag. He talks so much actual shit.

[ruuger]

His public persona is that of a complete douchebag. He talks so much actual shit.

I have to say I'm really surprised that it took this long for Tumblr to turn against him (and even now, it was apparently sparked by shipping-guised-as-social-justice - if only he hadn't broken up Hawkeye and Black Widow, this all would have been prevented). I mean, he made straight-up transphobic comments a while ago, and only a couple of people called him out.