I think they just didn't understand ...I want to say rape. But it goes back to what Patton Oswalt says so well in his blog post on the topic. Whedon doesn't quite understand what rape means in this culture - how the culture blames the victim. From his perspective, he saw a demonization of the rapist, and thought you have to see the act as bad not the person - which is true. But in our culture - rapists are really demonized, so much as excused. All you have to do is read a few romance novels to see it - or flip on the tv.
Was trying to read a Western the other day, and a character states that the woman was asking for it because of how she was dressed in the open plains. (She was wearing a riding outfit, which was a sort of trousers outfit, like a man.) I stopped reading, annoyed.
Whedon does the same thing again in Dollhouse, and allegedly was planning a similar story for Firefly. The patronizing attitude that women bring this on themselves...I also this attitude in the Buffy comics, one of the many reasons I stopped reading. It's an attitude that is unfortunately prevalent in our culture - and no more so than in Hollywood. I honestly don't believe he is aware of it. If you were to point it out to him, he'd be shocked - in much the same way many stand-up comics were.
It's odd, because Buffy and Whedon's earlier writing starts out well - it deals with the rape culture fairly well to start. It's really not until much later that this problem seemed to pop up. Perhaps it was there to start? And I just missed it?
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Whedon doesn't quite understand what rape means in this culture - how the culture blames the victim. From his perspective, he saw a demonization of the rapist, and thought you have to see the act as bad not the person - which is true. But in our culture - rapists are really demonized, so much as excused. All you have to do is read a few romance novels to see it - or flip on the tv.
Was trying to read a Western the other day, and a character states that the woman was asking for it because of how she was dressed in the open plains. (She was wearing a riding outfit, which was a sort of trousers outfit, like a man.) I stopped reading, annoyed.
Whedon does the same thing again in Dollhouse, and allegedly was planning a similar story for Firefly. The patronizing attitude that women bring this on themselves...I also this attitude in the Buffy comics, one of the many reasons I stopped reading. It's an attitude that is unfortunately prevalent in our culture - and no more so than in Hollywood. I honestly don't believe he is aware of it. If you were to point it out to him, he'd be shocked - in much the same way many stand-up comics were.
It's odd, because Buffy and Whedon's earlier writing starts out well - it deals with the rape culture fairly well to start. It's really not until much later that this problem seemed to pop up. Perhaps it was there to start? And I just missed it?