Joss's politics

POSTED BY: doublethink84
UPDATED: Tuesday, August 31, 2004 13:09
VIEWED: 14982
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DOUBLETHINK84

Tuesday, July 13, 2004 5:22 PM

stereotypical- the head up in clouds, ideological, unrealistic liberal. the liberal who just says 'peace man'.

PURPLEBELLY

Tuesday, July 13, 2004 5:40 PM

You can put the mirror away. That is not the Janet I wish to be.
Oops, wrong show/producer - sorry

TOTALLYFRYED

Tuesday, July 13, 2004 6:37 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by doublethink84:
stereotypical- the head up in clouds, ideological, unrealistic liberal. the liberal who just says 'peace man'.

Thanks for indulging my curiosity; I was asking because the stereotype of liberals that I see in the right-wing media (I'm assuming you mean Fox News, etc.) is a very angry one, like there's no joy in people's lives - just bitterness, pain and anger. It's a shame that either stereotype exists, but I guess all that anyone can do is prove them wrong.

"C'mon, Kaylee. We all know I'm the funny one."

SHINYSEVEN

Tuesday, July 13, 2004 6:53 PM

Heart of Gold is kind of a condensed version of The Handmaid's Tale, only with more shooting and whores, and Burgess the Family Values Guy is very much the villain of the piece.

SIMONF

Tuesday, July 13, 2004 7:29 PM

There was a interview Joss did with The Face magazine a few months back. I think that one is the best for what his political views are (which for me came over as left wing European i.e. left of the Democrats).

I'm sure if people look hard enough for it, they will find scans of it on the Net.

GHOULMAN

Wednesday, July 14, 2004 9:03 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
'Mal's politics are very reactionary and 'Big government is bad' and 'Don't interfere with my life,''' Whedon explains. ''And sometimes he's wrong -- because sometimes the Alliance is America, this beautiful shining light of democracy. But sometimes the Alliance is America in Vietnam: we have a lot of petty politics, we are way out of our league and we have no right to control these people. And yet! Sometimes the Alliance is America in Nazi Germany. And Mal can't see that, because he was a Vietnamese.''

The show's other central concern diverges intriguingly from Buffy's universe, where fate and destiny loom large. ''I'm a very hard-line, angry atheist,'' Whedon says. ''Yet I am fascinated by the concept of devotion. And I want to explore that.'' (His existential revelation arrived during an adolescent viewing of ''Close Encounters of the Third Kind'' -- an experience soon followed by a reading of Sartre's ''Nausea.'') Mal tells the preacher who is a passenger on his ship, ''You're welcome on my boat; God ain't.'' If Buffy is the chosen one, forced to struggle with a responsibility that comes from outside, Mal is defiant in his belief that his fate is meaningless. ''This is a man who has learned that when he believed in something it destroyed him,'' Whedon explains. ''So what he believes in is the next job, the next paycheck and keeping his crew safe.'' It is a typical Whedonian inversion: much the way Buffy is a demon-killer obsessed with the morality of killing, Mal is a man of action frozen by his conviction that nothing really matters, a man forced to choose his morality at each juncture. ''Whatever I may think of him politically, he's a guy who looks into the void and sees nothing but the void -- and says there is no moral structure, there is no help, no one's coming, no one gets it, I have to do it.''

Disco.

I don't know much about Whedon (I don't read interviews much) but SignyM here seems to have hit a nail or two. Thanks! Now I don't have to read that interview! Hmm, how lazy am I?

I noticed that Whedon is pretty middle of the road, young Yank from the burbs. His stories are really bang on yet they are trapped in these genre settings (which cause him lots of pain I'd guess). He isn't "radical" by any means, that is, if you're like me and believe most Americans are rather liberal.

Still he manages to skim right up to racism, fascism, and other.. er, big bads and still come out smelling like a rose. That's writing!

Tell me Sigy... is the term "Whedonian inversion" your own? It may be the Whedon key man! Tell me!

GHOULMAN

Wednesday, July 14, 2004 9:06 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by shinyseven:
Heart of Gold is kind of a condensed version of The Handmaid's Tale, only with more shooting and whores,....

ROTFL!

KOZURE

Wednesday, July 14, 2004 9:21 PM

For an interesting new (sort of) take on political alignment, which pulls a little further away from the old, one-dimensional polarization of Left and Right, check out this site:

http://www.politicalcompass.org

If I were to hazard a guess, I'd say Joss is in the -3 to -6 range of the economic scale and -4 to -6 on the social scale, that is, in the Collectivism / Individualism quadrant.

If that seems like a whole bunch of gobbledygook to you, follow the link. It really is an interesting site.

Kozure the Kamikaze Highlander

Proud Citizen of Canada-That-Was

SIGNYM

Thursday, July 15, 2004 4:16 AM

Ghoulman I'm sorry!!! That writing isn't mine- I wish I could claim it was. I was looking for the original interview... I had a link to the whole damn thing... but all I could find was this snippet, and no byline.

Drats, drats, drats!!

It was a really long article, too.

mea culpa!

PURPLEBELLY

Thursday, July 15, 2004 5:51 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Ghoulman:
I noticed that Whedon is pretty middle of the road, young Yank from the burbs.

Third generation TV writer, educated at Riverdale, Winchester College and Wesleyan sounds like aristo to me, but I am European.

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