![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatThis is just...so insanely ironic, if you know anything about the back-story behind the Buffy Movie - that lead to Whedon's chance to redo it on Television.
Chris Terrio, the original screenwriter of Justice League is furious with how Whedon vandalized his script
"Chris Terrio is not pulling his punches anymore. For five years the Oscar-winning screenwriter of Argo kept his mouth shut about his work on the DC films Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Justice League, even as scorn from critics and fans exacerbated already-painful behind-the-scenes memories. Worst of all, he agreed with many of their complaints.
He described the films that Warner Bros. released to theaters in 2016 and 2017 as incoherent misfires, undermined by corporate meddling, poor franchise planning, and tone-deaf decisions that prioritized costly VFX sequences over coherent storytelling. Terrio believes that Zack Snyder’s director’s cuts of both are much stronger, if still imperfect movies—an overall vindication of their work together.
In an exclusive, wide-ranging interview, the screenwriter said the #SnyderCut of Justice League, recently released as a four-hour-plus event on HBO Max, righted a kind of cinematic wrong perpetrated by studio leadership that has now almost entirely moved on from Warner Bros.
(The studio did not provide any comment on his remarks.)
Terrio first joined the DC Universe to rewrite an existing Batman v Superman script because its Batman actor (the director of Argo) had qualms about the project. “I think the studio brought me in to appease Ben Affleck, because they thought, Okay, well, we have this movie star who is reluctant about doing this, so why don’t we bring in his guy?” Terrio said.
The screenwriter was frank about trying to make sense of the film’s warring heroes, turning their fight into a metaphor for a divided America, while attempting to fix elements he too found nonsensical or offensive. Studio officials then demanded that 30 minutes be removed from the theatrical cut, most likely because shorter run times mean more daily screenings, often resulting in higher box office earnings. Terrio said that act sabotaged the narrative.
“If you took 30 minutes out of Argo, as they were from Batman/Superman, it would make zero sense at all. Critics would say, ‘what a lazy screenplay,’ because the characters don’t have motivations and it’s not coherent,” Terrio said. “And I would agree with them.”
Even the title of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice was a disaster, he said, that primed audiences to roll their eyes at the film well before its release.
Terrio hoped Justice League would be a better experience. He was very wrong.
After watching Joss Whedon’s version of that film, Terrio was so disgusted that he explored taking his name off the movie. Especially galling to him was the sidelining of Ray Fisher’s tragic hero, Cyborg, whose arc the actor himself had helped craft."
- Why this is so ironic?
Whedon's Issues with the Buffy Movie
One might think that having an A-list celebrity like Donald Sutherland on board a project would provide a very good opportunity for a project. For the Buffy the Vampire Slayer film, though, writer Joss Whedon (who went on to give us the excellent Buffy TV series) absolutely hated working with the actor who portrayed Buffy's mentor and Watcher, Merrick.
Sutherland had a habit of re-writing his lines in the movie, leading Whedon to later refer to the man as someone who was rude. Whedon never questioned Sutherland's abilities as an actor, but he still states that he hated working with him, referring to it as a bad experience. Sutherland is also why later writers ended up changing Merrick's story arc in the movie.
**
There were a lot of "creative differences" between Whedon, who wrote the original script for the movie, and everyone else involved with the Buffy film. Not only did Whedon have issues with Sutherland re-writing his role and changing the script, but there was also pressure from higher-ups during the making of the film to make it more of a comedy and less of the dark genre concept that we associate with the Buffy story from the TV series. Eventually, Whedon got fed up and walked away.
Whedon eventually returned to Buffy with the TV series, though, and, fortunately, got to create the character he initially imagined. He also worked with Dark Horse Comics on a Buffy graphic novel called The Origin, which used the original movie script that Whedon wrote.
**
Kuzui is the person responsible for a lot of the script changes in the film because she was its director. Because she directed the movie and it still has ties to the TV series, she gets an Executive Producer credited for the TV show, as well as its spinoff Angle. And Joss Whedon must see that name come up on his beloved series in every single episode, even though they disagreed fundamentally on Buffy's character and story.
**
There was the original script written by Whedon and the final version of the script that became the film. And those two scripts turned out as wildly different. When Whedon created the TV series, he used his original script (the version fans didn't get to see in the movie) as a prequel to the series fans know and love. That's why there are a lot of continuity and canon issues between the movie and the show.
So, Whedon's original script was ruined in his opinion, and vandalized by the actors, a rushed production schedule and the director. Then several years later, he got the chance to redo it - his way.
Scan about thirty years later? Whedon does the exact same thing Sutherland and Kuzui's did to him, to Snyder/Terrio and all.
30 years later - Whedon is on the opposite side of his own argument. Ironic.
Chris Terrio, the original screenwriter of Justice League is furious with how Whedon vandalized his script
"Chris Terrio is not pulling his punches anymore. For five years the Oscar-winning screenwriter of Argo kept his mouth shut about his work on the DC films Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Justice League, even as scorn from critics and fans exacerbated already-painful behind-the-scenes memories. Worst of all, he agreed with many of their complaints.
He described the films that Warner Bros. released to theaters in 2016 and 2017 as incoherent misfires, undermined by corporate meddling, poor franchise planning, and tone-deaf decisions that prioritized costly VFX sequences over coherent storytelling. Terrio believes that Zack Snyder’s director’s cuts of both are much stronger, if still imperfect movies—an overall vindication of their work together.
In an exclusive, wide-ranging interview, the screenwriter said the #SnyderCut of Justice League, recently released as a four-hour-plus event on HBO Max, righted a kind of cinematic wrong perpetrated by studio leadership that has now almost entirely moved on from Warner Bros.
(The studio did not provide any comment on his remarks.)
Terrio first joined the DC Universe to rewrite an existing Batman v Superman script because its Batman actor (the director of Argo) had qualms about the project. “I think the studio brought me in to appease Ben Affleck, because they thought, Okay, well, we have this movie star who is reluctant about doing this, so why don’t we bring in his guy?” Terrio said.
The screenwriter was frank about trying to make sense of the film’s warring heroes, turning their fight into a metaphor for a divided America, while attempting to fix elements he too found nonsensical or offensive. Studio officials then demanded that 30 minutes be removed from the theatrical cut, most likely because shorter run times mean more daily screenings, often resulting in higher box office earnings. Terrio said that act sabotaged the narrative.
“If you took 30 minutes out of Argo, as they were from Batman/Superman, it would make zero sense at all. Critics would say, ‘what a lazy screenplay,’ because the characters don’t have motivations and it’s not coherent,” Terrio said. “And I would agree with them.”
Even the title of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice was a disaster, he said, that primed audiences to roll their eyes at the film well before its release.
Terrio hoped Justice League would be a better experience. He was very wrong.
After watching Joss Whedon’s version of that film, Terrio was so disgusted that he explored taking his name off the movie. Especially galling to him was the sidelining of Ray Fisher’s tragic hero, Cyborg, whose arc the actor himself had helped craft."
- Why this is so ironic?
Whedon's Issues with the Buffy Movie
One might think that having an A-list celebrity like Donald Sutherland on board a project would provide a very good opportunity for a project. For the Buffy the Vampire Slayer film, though, writer Joss Whedon (who went on to give us the excellent Buffy TV series) absolutely hated working with the actor who portrayed Buffy's mentor and Watcher, Merrick.
Sutherland had a habit of re-writing his lines in the movie, leading Whedon to later refer to the man as someone who was rude. Whedon never questioned Sutherland's abilities as an actor, but he still states that he hated working with him, referring to it as a bad experience. Sutherland is also why later writers ended up changing Merrick's story arc in the movie.
**
There were a lot of "creative differences" between Whedon, who wrote the original script for the movie, and everyone else involved with the Buffy film. Not only did Whedon have issues with Sutherland re-writing his role and changing the script, but there was also pressure from higher-ups during the making of the film to make it more of a comedy and less of the dark genre concept that we associate with the Buffy story from the TV series. Eventually, Whedon got fed up and walked away.
Whedon eventually returned to Buffy with the TV series, though, and, fortunately, got to create the character he initially imagined. He also worked with Dark Horse Comics on a Buffy graphic novel called The Origin, which used the original movie script that Whedon wrote.
**
Kuzui is the person responsible for a lot of the script changes in the film because she was its director. Because she directed the movie and it still has ties to the TV series, she gets an Executive Producer credited for the TV show, as well as its spinoff Angle. And Joss Whedon must see that name come up on his beloved series in every single episode, even though they disagreed fundamentally on Buffy's character and story.
**
There was the original script written by Whedon and the final version of the script that became the film. And those two scripts turned out as wildly different. When Whedon created the TV series, he used his original script (the version fans didn't get to see in the movie) as a prequel to the series fans know and love. That's why there are a lot of continuity and canon issues between the movie and the show.
So, Whedon's original script was ruined in his opinion, and vandalized by the actors, a rushed production schedule and the director. Then several years later, he got the chance to redo it - his way.
Scan about thirty years later? Whedon does the exact same thing Sutherland and Kuzui's did to him, to Snyder/Terrio and all.
30 years later - Whedon is on the opposite side of his own argument. Ironic.
no subject
Date: 2021-04-09 06:33 pm (UTC)Sutherland
Date: 2021-04-09 07:10 pm (UTC)MASH was in 1970 (I think he forgot about it). Between MASH and Buffy, there's about more than a hundred different roles. I mean by that time - people remembered him better for Ordinary People, Klute, Crackers, Kelly's Heroes, A Dry White Season, Don't Look Now, JFK, Backdraft...the list is endless.
So, no, he changed the script because he thought the dialogue was dumb. And said so. Actually Jeremy Irons said the same thing to Whedon on the Justice League set. Anthony Stewart Head in marked contrast had...well a few television shows, and a couple of West End Theater appearances, and a Taster's Choice commercial to his credit. Irons and Sutherland have worked with top-notch screen writers. I think Sutherland pretty much told Whedon that his character wouldn't say this, and he didn't want to look like an idiot on screen. LOL! (I read the Buffy script online - Whedon's original version, also saw the Buffy movie in the movie theater, and read the novelization in the book store. The novelization isn't bad. Whedon's original script is bad. I don't blame Sutherland at all. He has Buffy feeling period/menstruation cramps whenever she senses a vampire.)
The MASH script - which I've also read, and I've seen the film three times - I was comparing it to the series, for a class in undergrad - where my assignment was to pick a television series and do a critical analysis of its humor. It's satire and black comedy - but well-written, and a thing of its time - I mean it was written in 1970. The dialogue is on target, and the satire biting.
Whedon doesn't come close to the level of that script.
TBC
Whedon
Date: 2021-04-09 07:12 pm (UTC)"He was all of 25 years old when he sold his first screenplay: a teen-targeted curiosity about a high-school valley girl who discovers that she’s destined not to “graduate, go to Europe, marry Christian Slater, and die,” but to fight the forces of evil. Whedon was there on set during some of the making of Buffy The Vampire Slayer; he got to watch, helplessly, as they dumbed down and lightened up his script, as Donald Sutherland rewrote his dialogue on the fly, as director Fran Rubel Kuzui took the whole enterprise in a much broader direction. The writer ended up walking off set and never returning. He insists today that the big-screen Buffy isn’t canon, even if its plot outline roughly aligns with the backstory to which the small-screen version alludes. (An approximation of Whedon’s original, unaltered screenplay exists in canonical comic-book form. It’s called The Origin.)"
25 Years Later - the Buffy Movie Looks Less Like a Dry Run..
And what Whedon wanted was...
As the TV version of Buffy The Vampire Slayer celebrates its 20th Anniversary, some may view its endurability with a bit of shock, but for Joss Whedon the entire “movement” has been part of a master plan. Merchandising, spin-offs, cult and mainstream appeal, critical acclaim — all of it was by design.
buffy-cast
“I’ve said it before,” he insists, “I always intended for this to be a cultural phenomenon. That’s how I wrote it. In the back of my mind, I was always picking up an Oscar or a Saturn Award and everyone was playing with Buffy dolls.”
Buffy Vampire Slayer Turns 20 - Joss Whedon Looks Back
He didn't really get what he wanted. He wanted Star Wars or Star Trek with Buffy, what he got was well not that.
[Sorry serious film geek in attendance. LOL!]
Re: Whedon
Date: 2021-04-09 07:14 pm (UTC)Re: Sutherland
Date: 2021-04-09 08:11 pm (UTC)and he didn't want to look like an idiot on screen.
Which is what I meant when I thought he didn't want to play Hawkeye again.
Re: Sutherland
Date: 2021-04-09 08:17 pm (UTC)No, Whedon's script was just not that good. It was serious - but well, consider S1 Buffy? Not the best season. Welcome to the Hellmouth and the Buffy pilot are kind of silly. Whedon didn't hit his stride with writing until roughly half-way through S2. S1 was dumb. I remember being disappointed in it. Then Whedon got burned out...and his writing kind of goes downhill in S7 Buffy...
no subject
Date: 2021-04-09 07:12 pm (UTC)That's a pretty revealing quote alright. Also interesting the discussion about the Lois Lane line.
He's totally right about the action and stunt scenes. I remember Joss mentioning that before he even started work on the Avengers that it had been determined there would be a fight between Iron Man and Thor. So his job, really, was making that fight make sense. I suspect the same is true of the one in Ultron between Iron Man and Hulk which too my mind was boring and went on too long. I don't watch the movies for the "boom boom" noises but a good part of the audience does.
Ray came to my apartment in the East Village, and he and I just would take long walks and talk about Cyborg and the responsibility of putting the first Black DC superhero in a movie onscreen.
Little wonder that his experiences with Joss were negative if he expected something similar.
It's always interesting reading about the writers' POV, especially since it so often disappears in films.
no subject
Date: 2021-04-09 07:19 pm (UTC)At any rate, or for whatever reason, Whedon is notorious for refusing to take input from actors. He springs on them what he's doing - and tells them to do exactly what he wants. Brendan noted in a con once that Whedon made it clear "the" is there for a reason. No adlibbing on his scripts. And both VK and DB stated the biggest problem with Angel was they couldn't do improv nor had any input. Gellar stated the same thing - that she had no say or input, and when she complained, they shut her down. Same with Marsters.
It's not what all directors do. Only a handful does this - and if they aren't lauded, they are out fast. (Kubrick got away with it, as did Malick, but few do. Actors blacklist them after a while.)
Whedon's inability to work well with actors - is most likely the reason he hasn't gotten the directorial gigs that he wanted. Lucas had a similar problem. I don't think Whedon is as good of a collaborator as we thought. And that probably added to the toxic atmosphere of the set. Because television and film is collaboration. If you can't compromise and do that - write novels.
no subject
Date: 2021-04-09 09:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-04-10 03:05 am (UTC)And, I've directed a play. I directed a one-act play in high school, and received direction from various people in theater. There's a skill to it - it's not easy to do. I do not like directing, and have no interest in doing it. It's hard. And it requires an ability to communicate and persuade people to do what is in your head.
And writers for the most part, make lousy directors and collaborators. Mainly because they get too attached to their work/words, and don't collaborate that well. I asked John Scalzi - a sci-fi novelist, who is having his stuff adapted to screen, if he'd done any collaborations - and his response was no, he didn't tend to do it - because why write with others when he preferred to write alone, and the only way he would do it - is if he was the boss and they had to do what he wanted. A friend that I collaborated with on a play told me once that if she wrote a play for the theater - she expected people to get the words exactly right. (I was surprised by this since she had been a professional actress and was a member of SAG. I wouldn't have expected it - mainly because often an actor can improve upon the play, by showing how dialogue changes when spoken. A line that works well in our head, doesn't always when spoken. Or the dynamic on stage - often changes what worked well on paper - to write for the stage or screen requires flexibility, I think. If you don't have that - you shouldn't write for it.) Professional writers have massive egos. And that's not a mixy thing with direction, particularly in regards to fragile actor egos.
I've done two writing collaborations to date - and in each instance - I had to compromise and cater to the other egos. And be sensitive to them. On a play that I co-wrote - I basically let the other woman rewrite the entire play and change it completely. And on a fanfic that I co-wrote with six other people - I ended up taking on the role of facilitator and negotiator. They fought over everything.
They didn't agree on the characters, the plot, or the direction. One writer wanted to put both Spike and Angelus in dresses, another writer was strongly opposed to putting Angelus in a dress. And both threatened to leave the collaboration if the other didn't compromise. I checked with the other writers, and determined that most people didn't care one way or the other, so negotiated a compromise - Spike would wear a dress at Angelus's urging. It involved a lot of negotiation, mediation, and coordination. It was a nightmare.
That's what a director does. Zack Snyder from all reports is excellent at this - and a pleasure to work with. Gail Gadot, Ben Affleck, Jared Leto, Jason Momoa, Jeremy Irons, Diane Lane, Kevin Costner, etc - all enjoyed working with him, and were willing to come back and do any reshoots needed (very few were). They became friends. Snyder would sit down with each of them and discuss their character's motivations, he and Chris Terrio spent time building the characters with them, and working out the dialogue and the script. It was a true collaboration.
Whedon in stark contrast - didn't tell his actors what their motivation was. Gave them the script. Gave them their marks, and basically treated them like dolls or robots. And was not that good at conveying what he wanted. He didn't just do that on Justice League - he did it on Buffy, Angel, Firefly, Dollhouse, The Avengers, Much Ado About Nothing...
I know this because of some of the odd comments at the Q&A's over the years. Marsters stated he was rarely directed by Whedon, and when he was - it was made clear that he said the line, hit the mark, and there was no improv. Gellar who came from soaps and was used to hitting her marks and taking that type of direction - said more or less the same thing. She had no say. Both made it clear that they didn't know their characters arcs or their motivation. Brendan - same, he said he had to be letter perfect. Vincent Karthesier - hated S4, possibly as much as Charisma did, and was happy to leave. They had to talk him into coming back for those last two episodes. He said in an interview much later that he did not enjoy Angel, and found the role to be suffocating. He had no say and no control, unlike Mad Men - where he had far more freedom and there was more collaboration. (Although Matt Weiner apparently was problematic as well).
I will be surprised if Whedon gets another directing gig. He might get ghost-writing or script writing here and there, but no direction and no show-running. Also, I'm not sure he'll get to produce either.
Note - he doesn't own the rights to Buffy - they could reboot that property completely without him down the road.
no subject
Date: 2021-04-09 07:30 pm (UTC)It's rare that a screenplay is untouched in a film. Many directors fiddle with it. Ben Affleck - clearly was worried about the script, and figured out early on that Snyder isn't a writer.
(He's not). So hand-picked Terrio. I can only imagine how annoyed Affleck was with Whedon coming in and redoing the whole thing. It does, however, explain why the Affleck Batman film fell through.
I don't watch the movies for the "boom boom" noises but a good part of the audience does.
True. The problem with films based on popular comic books, and superhero/action genre is about 50% of the nitch audience is basically into lots of action sequences, special effects (and video game violence). They don't want the conversations and character moments - which is what I prefer.
And the Wall Street types or the financial backers - want a sizable return on their investment, so they fiddle with it. They clearly fiddled with both BvsS and Justice League. Because I watched the Snydercut of both, and was surprised. I did not like BvsS in the cinema, but I really enjoyed it BvsS Ultimate Edition on HBO Max. (It's an interesting film and quite good in places.) Also was suprised by Snyder's Justice League. (It probably helped that I prefer the darker take on Superman. Whose a character that I always struggled with and Snyder/Terrio kind of explore those issues, as did Nolan/Snyder explore my issues with Batman. So if your mileage varies on that - it may not work as well for you?)
no subject
Date: 2021-04-09 09:29 pm (UTC)Action scenes are hard to do well in film. To date - I'd say Snyder and the Russos handle them the best in Superhero films. I hated Whedon's action scenes - they gave me a headache and were boring.
Snyder makes them kind of epic, but also there's a video game aspect...
I remember how Peckinpah changed action sequences in the 70s with his dark westerns, and the slow-mo action sequence, making it almost like watching a ballet, and emphasizing the violence. Which was in turn borrowed and added to - by Coppola in the Godfather films. I like to call it hyper-realism. Snyder also changed how action was done with the 300, where he turns it into a painting of sorts - both the violence and the epic grandeur are emphasized, which follows through in most of his films.
Whedon is not good at action sequences - it's not his skill-set. Actually in Justice League, he does keep most of Snyder's action sequences, he just cuts them short - often to the scenes detriment. (The Wonder Woman and Flash action sequences suffer.) And his action sequences in the Avengers films were overly busy and hard to follow - part of the problem with Endgame - was we were stuck with Whedon's Avenger's action sequences.
no subject
Date: 2021-04-12 07:43 am (UTC)Indeed. His action scenes have been the main reason that currently, my highest praise for any action scene I watch is "I can keep track of what's going on!" I just got SO SICK of getting lost in Avengers action scenes.
no subject
Date: 2021-04-12 12:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-04-09 07:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-04-09 08:12 pm (UTC)Because I definitely see a pattern emerging - more than one actor/writer has stated that Whedon rewrote scripts, told them to do it differently, shut them down, etc. Charisma's statements indicate that about 50% of the bullying she received was because she wasn't giving Whedon whatever it was he wanted, Nick Frost on the Nevers indicates that Whedon's a nice person but a horrible director who didn't know what he wanted or worse, couldn't convey it, Jose Molina states the same about the writers room, Brendan states that Whedon was anal about dialogue, Marsters reports the same, it goes on and on and on...
no subject
Date: 2021-04-09 08:23 pm (UTC)The question is whether he's intentionally being shitty because he thinks someone was once shitty to him - or whether he's just oblivious and does what he wants. Not entirely sure I care either way - shitty is as shitty does.
no subject
Date: 2021-04-09 09:16 pm (UTC)I know from reading interviews and off-the-cuff comments, one in the commentary of the Firefly Pilot episode - which stuck with me, because it annoyed me - "nothing worse than a theater actor" or "Fillion is great unlike theater actors, who are horrible" - something along those lines. He had a chip on his shoulder about actors - specifically theater actors that grated. (I am a theater geek, and prefer theater to the other mediums in some respects - because it's off the cuff and anything can happen. Theater is an actor's medium. When he made that off-the-cuff comment, I thought, poor James Marsters, Juliet Landau, and Head - who are all first and foremost theater actors.)
But people are more than one thing, and I'm guessing that Whedon most likely doesn't handle stressful situations well. Justice League was a nightmare situation - any way you cut it. That said, it doesn't explain his behavior on both Buffy and Angel, or to a lesser degree on Firefly.
And my guess is he has had issues elsewhere.
The problem though is this behavior is not only allowed, but accepted in Hollywood - and that's a huge problem. Whedon is not the only asshole, if anything he's the norm. But, that said, I know that toxic directors tend to lose out in the end, and don't get gigs - unless they are Stanley Kubrick or Terence Malik - and even those guys didn't get that many gigs.
Hollywood is changing - actors now own the rights to a lot of film properties and can hire the director they want or direct it themselves. Ben Affleck has a better directorial credit list than Whedon. And Terrio, the screen-writer, has a better rep than Whedon does in Hollywood. Terro wrote the Argo script - which won an Oscar, as opposed to Whedon getting an Oscar as part of the writing team for Toy Story.
no subject
Date: 2021-04-10 07:00 am (UTC)I think you're pretty much spot-on regarding this. And also...
The problem though is this behavior is not only allowed, but accepted in Hollywood - and that's a huge problem. Whedon is not the only asshole, if anything he's the norm.
At the core, I suspect so much of the reason relates to the monetary structure that envelopes much of the film and TV world, but film especially. All that matters to many of the larger studios and production houses is... will this make lots of bucks? If having a pushy, miserable, demanding director gets bucks to flow in, there's no reason not to encourage them.
Look at Trump in the political arena. It seems like it should defy logic that nearly all Republicans simply fall in line behind him, energetically support him, when his personal faults are objectively glaring and repetitive. Why?
Because-- "He's rich, and lots of people voted for him, so he must be doing something right, and if we do the same, we might get rich(er) too." If movies with lots of pointless explosions and dumb, or sexist, or racist dialog sell more tickets than "thoughtful" ones, then bring 'em on.
It's a disease, one sadly infecting many people, even some who on the surface appear to be more enlightened. And in some cases, it's more a matter of ego than wealth.
(And with Trump, it's especially toxic because it's both, and then pushed to the max, 24/7).
no subject
Date: 2021-04-10 01:43 pm (UTC)In the Renegades Podcasts on Spotify - Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen (who are currently wealthy but did not come from wealth nor pursued it) comment on this at length. And they agree that since roughly the 1980s, or Regan era, the pursuit of wealth and acquisition of material wealth was highly promoted above all else. And, they said - Trump was in many ways the epitome of that. He represented for many people what it meant to be successful. The big name on buildings, in big gold letters. The gold plated ceilings, the golf clubs, the personal airplane with his name on it, the trophy wife, the ability to do or say whatever he wanted.
I've spoken with Trump supporters - there were/are quite a few in my workplace. They all said the same thing: "well, he's helped the economy - the economy is doing great, I've more money now." Or "well, he's a successful businessman and a billionaire - isn't that what we want?" Or, "He will lower my taxes and I'll have more money."
People evaluate success by how much money we make. How big our house is. How many cars we own. What type of cars. What gym. If we have a personal trainer or trainers. Where we vacation. How many houses we have. How big our salary is. How much money our book made. How much money our blog got. How many records were sold - and how much money we got for them.
Movies? How much money did it make?
Consider for a minute - that the $200 million dollar Batman vs. Superman film was considered a failure because it only made $803 million at the box office. As opposed to the 1.4 billion that Avengers Age of Ultron made. The films were compared based on the amount of money they made in Hollywood Circles not their content, nothing else. Or the smaller independent films that make very little money but are studied in film circles and rented over and over years later.
Or look at books? Fifty Shades of Grey and Twilight were deemed successful based on the amount of money they made. There were so many better written, not to mention books that we read now and are more relevant and more likely to stand the test of time - that we barely know about.
This emphasis on success, wealth, fame, fortune - acquisition of material items over all else - is destroying us. Obama states that it isolates people and erodes the sense of community. People are stuck behind gated walls and in gated communities, far apart from each other. But they don't want to give it up.
So, yeah, it's definitely a sickness. I think it infected Whedon - who got caught up in it. I remember what he said after Avengers made over a billion - and was at that time the most successful superhero film ever made (based on box office returns, nothing else - that was the criteria). "I can punch my own ticket now and do anything I want, because of the Avengers and how much it made." (No, it was a superhero film in a superhero franchise - it had a built in audience. But okay.)
Along with fandom - that infected Whedon as well. But Whedon came from wealth - he went to boarding schools in NY and London. He went to UCLA (not cheap). He has a family villa in Italy. His father and grandfather were successful television situation comedy show-runners - Golden Girls, was his father's show. He got his first job in television via their connections. He got his Buffy script seen because of their connections. So, he kind of was part of the system to begin with, and never really rebelled against it.
no subject
Date: 2021-04-11 07:31 am (UTC)And not only that, there was the beginning of energetically promoting the "trickle-down" concept, whereby if the working class would only give more of their money to the wealthy, then the wealthy could use their investment magic to make even more money out of that. Oooo!!
Problem is, the concept is inherently nonsensical. All wealth, ultimately, occurs because of labor. If you do not do anything-- any concrete thing, like build a shelter, hunt and/or farm food for sustenance, ya'all gonna die eventually. It's simple survival, but clever beings that we are, we've evolved to do all sorts of amazing things by dint of labor, even have a human being walk on the moon, or make a vaccine for a deadly virus.
A good analogy I give to help dispel the falsehood of trickle-down is to, appropriately, use the water cycle as an example. Clouds may produce rain, but they do not create rain! All the water that clouds make into rain is water that has risen up from the earth's surface, condensed in the clouds, and eventually gets too heavy to stay up there, and... drippy time!
Wealthy people cannot magically make more wealth out of an existing amount of labor, they can only redistribute it. It seems often forgotten that rich men like say Jeff Bezos got that money from all the massive number of people who've bought things from Amazon, and those people got that money from their employer or themselves, who got their money from... and so on down until you're at the "earth"-- dig, plant, build-- labor.
Math. Physics. Not magic.
no subject
Date: 2021-04-11 01:25 pm (UTC)It's how they spend the wealth that is at issue. And, as I've told more than one fiscal conservative - people aren't as nice and generous as you like to think. People tend to put themselves and their families first. Sometimes their friends or community falls into that. Basically their tribe. They don't see a reason to help people they don't know, or to care about neighboring communities or tribes.
(I know, I've had these debates with them. ) "Why should I care or pay for someone else's health care? Why should I care or pay for their schooling - when I can use this money to pay for concert tickets to see so and so for the fifteenth time! Or get top tier seats at the opera."
That's why trickle down economics doesn't work.
Also, if you don't support the labor, and pay them less and less, to get further ahead yourself, sooner or later they will, as Marx aptly pointed out, rise up and oust you.
What's interesting about Trumpism and Regan - is how both managed to grab the working class's soul. How? Social conservatism and the promise of wealth. The working class in the United States, and the middle class, tends to be socially conservative and is not known for its critical thinking ability. Particularly in rural and surburban areas. A lot of the immigrants are socially conservative as well. A lot of those people voted for Trump. Biden is wise to pull away from the "culture or social issues" and focus on economic disparity, infrastructure, and pandemic. Because right now, the US is still in the middle of a culture war - and that is a major factor.
no subject
Date: 2021-04-10 08:46 am (UTC)