Ferretbrain Hates Joss Whedon

[skull_bearer]

I mean, it started off as pretty good deconstructions of the flaws in Whedon's writing (particularly the rather skeevy Dollhouse) but now their articles have gone straight into hatedom outright bashing with the last two podcasts on Cabin in the Woods and Avengers, both of which contained so much projection you could probably use the contributors for powerpoint presentations.

It's a bit annoying, I really liked Ferretbrain, but this isn't a road I want to see the site go down. While I certainly don't believe that any film is above or below criticism, there's a point where you have to draw the line because the assumptions you're making and actions you're projecting onto the film and its makers just isn't supported (ie, the idea that Cabin in the Woods was Whedon ranting against horror movie audiences, rather than a hilarious commentary on the tropes of modern horror movies).

It's also rather fascinating, in a depressing way, just how hard they're projecting. The image of critical superiority they're attributing to Whedon could be far more accurately directed (as we have no idea what Whedon was thinking when he made these films) at the Ferretbrain crew themselves.

:(

Comments

[arkan2.livejournal.com]

Interesting. I just listened to the "Cabin Fever" episode the other day. I haven't listened to the "Avengers" episode because I haven't seen the movie yet, and unlike Cabin in the Woods, I do intend to see it. At present, I can't comment on either of the movies to see how my assessment differs from theirs.

From what I have seen of Whedon's work (all of Buffy, all of Angel, all of Firefly excluding the movie, and Season 1 of Dollhouse) I tend to agree with most of what the core Ferretcrew have to say about him. His television shows tend to have an inflated sense of their own profundity, to present feminist discourse which ranges from "okay" to "incredibly heavy-handed" and treat it as devastatingly cutting-edge, and to occasionally descend into levels of melodrama which make Russell T. Davies and Steven Moffat combined look like rank amateurs. They also tend to have better-than-average plots, characterization, dialogue, and general writing (with the exception of Dollhouse).

Personally, I don't hate Joss Whedon; I usually enjoy his work, and on a good day he can produce some damn good material. In general, I guess I identify with Dan Hemmens' statement about "everything which I love about Joss Whedon, and everything that makes me want to punch him in the teeth" (though I wouldn't put it that strongly myself).

I guess the biggest thing which has come up on ferretbrain which does not reflect my feelings about Whedon's work is the idea that he's trying to make some point about complicity and "You the viewer are participating in this horrible stuff" because something-or-other. I didn't get that sense from Dollhouse, though that could easily be because I'm just not very good at TV analysis (at least, whatever branch of TV analysis that stuff falls under).

I guess I'm trying to get a more precise sense of where, exactly, you think the crew are off base, and then try to work out what my own stance is in relation to that.

[skull-bearer.livejournal.com]

I suppose it's the parts where they make sweeping assumptions about what Joss Whedon meant and was thinking when he made the film/show, assumptions which are based on their own unproven theories on his work and character.

[arkan2.livejournal.com]

Oh, okay. I don't really go in for armchair psychoanalysis, and as I've already said, I have a hard time figuring out what "deeper messages" movies/TV shows are trying to convey. I do remember thinking some of their speculation about Whedon's thinking process were somewhat tenuous (though I personally found them entertaining enough).

[skull-bearer.livejournal.com]

I think it was around Cabin and Avengers that it became clear to me that they had their own idea of what Whedon was doing, and no amount of evidence to the contrary would change their minds. It was after watching them trying to force two perfectly good film to fit the faulty paradigm they'd set up that I realised they were seeing the films through Whedon-hate goggles and I was wasting my time.

It's a shame, I like Ferretbrain/

[arkan2.livejournal.com]

Well, now I've seen The Avengers and listened to the podcast and read the comments, and I admit I'm still in the dark. I mean, I guess there was a little bit of armchair psychoanalysis there in the discussion of Black Widow's interrogation scenes (personally, I haven't come to any conclusions about her character's presentation in the movie yet, but I'm fascinated by the discourse) and maybe one or two other places, like a call-back to their joke in the "Cabin Fever" podcast about "The Networks" (which I never took very seriously).

Mostly, the podcast struck me as two people good-naturedly poking fun at a film they thoroughly enjoyed and occasionally getting into an aspect of it they didn't enjoy so much; and the comments seem to be mostly about discussing the depiction of Black Widow, which as I said, I find interesting to follow.

I don't mean to be combative here, and I apologize if I come across that way. I'm very interested in your perspective on all this - it's just that so far, I'm having trouble seeing it that way.