Joss Post at Whedonesque

POSTED BY: FireflyPassenger
UPDATED: Monday, June 11, 2007 08:49
VIEWED: 40107
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FIREFLYPASSENGER

Sunday, May 20, 2007 1:49 PM

May 20 2007 Joss Whedon post on Whedonesque.
http://whedonesque.com/comments/13271#more

Let's Watch A Girl Get Beaten To Death. This is not my blog, but I don’t have a blog, or a space, and I’d like to be heard for a bit.

Last month seventeen year old Dua Khalil was pulled into a crowd of young men, some of them (the instigators) family, who then kicked and stoned her to death. This is an example of the breath-taking oxymoron “honor killing”, in which a family member (almost always female) is murdered for some religious or ethical transgression. Dua Khalil, who was of the Yazidi faith, had been seen in the company of a Sunni Muslim, and possibly suspected of having married him or converted. That she was torturously murdered for this is not, in fact, a particularly uncommon story. But now you can watch the action up close on CNN. Because as the girl was on the ground trying to get up, her face nothing but red, the few in the group of more than twenty men who were not busy kicking her and hurling stones at her were filming the event with their camera-phones.

There were security officers standing outside the area doing nothing, but the footage of the murder was taken – by more than one phone – from the front row. Which means whoever shot it did so not to record the horror of the event, but to commemorate it. To share it. Because it was cool.

I could start a rant about the level to which we have become desensitized to violence, about the evils of the voyeuristic digital world in which everything is shown and everything is game, but honestly, it’s been said. And I certainly have no jingoistic cultural agenda. I like to think that in America this would be considered unbearably appalling, that Kitty Genovese is still remembered, that we are more evolved. But coincidentally, right before I stumbled on this vid I watched the trailer for “Captivity”.

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? I have spent a good part of my life trying to do that math, and I’m no closer to a viable equation. And I have yet to find a culture that doesn’t buy into it. Women’s inferiority – in fact, their malevolence -- is as ingrained in American popular culture as it is anywhere they’re sporting burkhas. I find it in movies, I hear it in the jokes of colleagues, I see it plastered on billboards, and not just the ones for horror movies. Women are weak. Women are manipulative. Women are somehow morally unfinished. (Objectification: another tangential rant avoided.) And the logical extension of this line of thinking is that women are, at the very least, expendable.

I try to think how we got here. The theory I developed in college (shared by many I’m sure) is one I have yet to beat: Womb Envy. Biology: women are generally smaller and weaker than men. But they’re also much tougher. Put simply, men are strong enough to overpower a woman and propagate. Women are tough enough to have and nurture children, with or without the aid of a man. Oh, and they’ve also got the equipment to do that, to be part of the life cycle, to create and bond in a way no man ever really will. Somewhere a long time ago a bunch of men got together and said, “If all we do is hunt and gather, let’s make hunting and gathering the awesomest achievemen

PENGUIN

Sunday, May 20, 2007 2:15 PM

I admire a man who not only talks the talk, but walks the walk. Joss is a great man because of that.

Women are strong. We should build them up instead of breaking them down. It takes an animal to beat down a physically weaker woman. It takes a real man to accept a woman as an equal.

King of the Mythical Land that is Iowa

REDHEAD

Sunday, May 20, 2007 2:56 PM

Please,after you read the essay, go and read the comments at Whedonesq. You will be proud to be a member of (as a whole
) such an intelligent, articulate group of fans. (Make sure you get to the 99th post--that's Joss again!)

Then, may I humbly suggest you go to Equality Now and donate what you can afford. We--not just those of us who are women but all of us, as humans--must support a change in attitude towards women.

Finally, Let us try to effect a change in our own attitudes. As women, let us strive daily to be as strong and courageous as we can be and those of you who are men, please support us in our efforts.

In memory of Dua Khalil, who {apparently) was destroyed for trying to be herself.

CHRISISALL

Sunday, May 20, 2007 3:18 PM

This is why Joss is my Hero; he is who I would want to be...a wee bit shorter and a much better writer.

"Men are the weaker sex..."- Max Chrisisall

FLYVOTE

Sunday, May 20, 2007 3:34 PM

My little, simple statement at Whedonesque:

I love my wife. She has weaknesses, I have weaknesses. We know each other's weaknesses. She has strengths, I have strengths. We know each other's strengths. At no time will I use my strengths to take advantage of her weaknesses. I use my strengths only to help her. She reciprocates fairly.

All I can ever hope is that more married couples start to behave this way, that more societies start to behave this way, that more countries start to behave this way.

[ edit ] Flyvote | May 20, 16:31 CET

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FlyVote (version 2.6) Be a Big Damn Hero: http://www.usbmicro.com/misc For Windows/Linux/MacOS9/MacOSX
Vote for our Big Damn Heroes!

TDBROWN

Sunday, May 20, 2007 3:40 PM

Haven't been able to post on whedonesque, because it's so busy there... and rightly so.

We, as men, should not knock women down to unrealistic depths, nor should we build them up to unrealistic heights. We should walk beside them, sharing their nobility and strength, combining it with ours, so that we both might stand tall and truly free.

Thank you, Joss, for your courage and your conviction. We're with you, 100%.

"Might have been the losing side, still not convinced it was the wrong one." -Mal

CHRISISALL

Sunday, May 20, 2007 3:53 PM

The above two posts belong right up there with Joss' comments! I'm proud to be posting with the likes of y'all!

This is the REAL way to make better worlds Chrisisall

REDHEAD

Sunday, May 20, 2007 5:41 PM

Hey you all, I know this is a tangent but, if you've been keeping up on the commentary on whedonesque, what do you think about sansmercy being banned.

When I posted earlier about how proud I was of the articulate intelligent fans, I alluded to some being not so good. Two of the posts I was talking about being "less good" were sansmercy and caleb[edit, maybe not caleb--my memory is someone advocated going to another country and forcing them to conform to our belief set].

However, while I didn't like the violence and anger in either post, I also don't like that samsmercy who spoke out against Joss (wrongly IMO) was banned and anotehr who wholeheartedly(and somewhat violently) endorsed Joss apparently was not. Anyone else troubled by this?

edit: some of the later posts seem to indicate that sansmercy came back and made personal attacks. Can someone find this? My poor old eyes are aching and I can't find it.

YINYANG

Sunday, May 20, 2007 6:25 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by redhead:
edit: some of the later posts seem to indicate that sansmercy came back and made personal attacks. Can someone find this? My poor old eyes are aching and I can't find it.

Actually, I think it was right in her first post.

Quote:
How dare you link this to race.

This is the media's idea that honour killings don't happen in western countries ALL THE TIME, in christian households, in middle class households who have internet access, inside toilets and every advantage poor uneducated people in the middle of nowhere dont' have. That MOST domestic violence is about honour in some form, whether religious or cultural, and that mostly it is covered up for that same honour by men and women for the same reasons the woman in the video died.

You want religious encouragement of violence against women? check your bible. ANY bible. The vast majority of christians will choose not to use it, just like the vast majority of Muslims CHOOSE NOT TO. But it's there if you need it, if you're insane, if you live in an area that encourages fundamentalism as a way of life. If you're a woman there's no answer to it and if you're a man there's a nice excuse for you.

The problem with videos like this is that people watch them and have an excuse to hate entire cultures, vast portions of a map.

I'm also very very tired of people who need visual evidence shoved in their faces of human rights issues in order to feel something. You got so desensitised to violence that you need video footage of the starving, the downtrodden and the dead before you'll give money to a cause? screw you. There is *no such thing* as compassion fatigue. It's an infinite resource, like love. And if you're truly too stupid to realise that death and destruction are BAD THINGS that need to be stopped *without the video*, screw you twice. And I guess that screws over every poor country that can't afford the mobile phones to tape it.

Secret Message to Joss: it took THIS to break you? You weren't paying attention. (emphasis mine)

There was also the edited comment where she was mistaken in her belief that Joss linked to the video. There might have been personal attacks there we won't know about anymore.

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"If I were a Nazi, someone would defend my constitutional right to hate Jews. If I were a Klansman, someone would defend my rights to hate blacks. It's a funny place, this world. Hate has rights. Love has none." - Jeff, Murphy's Boy

REDHEAD

Sunday, May 20, 2007 6:29 PM

I got that her first post contained personal attacks. And I got that she got a warning. Someone else though made a reference to her making another attack. (which I guess could have been reason enough to kick her off but the first time wasn't)

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