Things that Smart, Cool People Think Are Great but Really Aren't, At All: Joss Whedon

This is a difficult topic for me to discuss openly. This is something that I feel very strongly about but that directly contradicts the deeply held beliefs of many of the people whom I love the most in this world. These are people whose perspectives and sensibilities are typically impeccably attuned with mine, whose opinions I usually hold in the utmost regard. My wife, my sisters, my brother-in-law: all love Joss Whedon with all of their hearts and souls. And boy oh boy I really can't stand him.

Even academics in the humanities, whose only real job is to have good taste in stuff and then yak about it, talk rapturously about his work and teach entire classes about him. Something is awry here -- I'm fundamentally out of sync with my people. I have to try to work this out. I don't like feeling this alone. 

For those who don't know, Joss Whedon is the creator of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," "Angel," "Firefly," and now "Dollhouse," the last of which I just tried unsuccessfully to sit through tonight with my wife. And I really tried. My wife had talked it up like it was the new best show ever. I hope I didn't hurt her feelings, but halfway through I had to turn away and play on the computer. It was just that painful.

No mediocre show would ever be this painful. Any show that doesn't even try to be original or interesting  (for example's sake, let's say "Two and Half Men,") would just wash over me in a numbing haze, after which I'd sit up and say, "Wait, that sucked!" But at least it wouldn't jab me in the gut while it was going on. Well, maybe it would. "The Housewives of Orange County" does, and it isn't anything but bad, bad, bad.

But "The Housewives of Orange County" hurts me in a more crass and obvious way, because it blatantly offends my values -- Joss Whedon shows are much more subtle, reaching deeper into my gut and offending values I didn't know I had.

OK, there are many good things about Joss Whedon shows. They often have very creative plots, for example. The high-concept episodes can be very inspired. Hair and makeup seems adequate. But the fundamental problem is the dialogue. It's always dreadful in a very unique way, a way I have trouble describing. In the spectrum of terrible dialogue, it's on the opposite end of the kind you'd find in any "Mystery Science Theater 3000"-type movie, in which the dialogue is contrived to serve the plot or is ridiculously melodramatic or just generally shows the signs of being written by dumb people with a tin ear for how real people really talk. In Joss Whedon shows, it's smart people, who are probably very nice in real life, writing smarty-pants dialogue that shows they have a tin ear for how real people really talk.

An example is in order. I can't find the exact quote I'm thinking of from tonight's episode -- hopefully I soon will and I'll revise this later. This exchange will do in the meantime.

OK, so the guy who created this ace of assassins or whatever (Boyd) hands a gun to Eliza Dushku (Echo), who is one of the assassin people. 

Boyd (handing Echo a gun): Do you know how to use this?

Echo: Four brothers. None of them Democrats.

OK, on the surface, students, this could possibly be a funny concept. Democrats don't have guns. This is probably something that "The Simpsons" has used to good effect at some point.

But this exchange takes that concept and delivers it such a ham-handed, look-at-me-aren't-I-clever way that it completely kills it. It's as if some blundering chunkhead got ahold of all "The Simpsons"' joke topics, ate them, and then puked all over an action film. 

But I don't know if that's even Simpsons-worthy, actually. I'm tempted to believe that the line above is a result of someone going to an irony mine that has long ago been tapped, dredging up some sludge, taking it home and calling it gold. 

Maybe a great actor could actually turn that shit into gold. Meryl Streep could say a line like that and make it seem like it's a joke for the sake of the other characters, one that might actually make sense within the narrative, instead of just seeming a wink and a nod at the audience. 

The problem is that in all Joss Whedon shows, all parts are performed by third-rate actors who aren't up the challenge. They don't ever seem like people who could ever come with a quip of any kind, good or bad, on the spot. As a result, all the dialogue seems so "written" that it keeps pulling you out of the action.

And a key problem is the context of these lines: in Joss Whedon shows, these kind of overwritten arch-clevernesses are usually in the midst of some hard-boiled moment, as in the above scene of being handed a gun. I guess it's supposed to be funnier, or cooler, or something, that these characters are able to quip "witticisms" while in the midst of some tense, tough-guy situation. Maybe it's supposed to make them seem even tougher. For me, it just ruins everything and makes them seem like annoying, showy pricks. I'm thinking "OK, yeah, you're hilarious, just take the damn gun." And then here comes a giant, slobbering, ugly monster -- nothing wrong with that -- but then you get a cloying, smart-ass quip that some good guy tries unsuccessfully to toss off -- "Someone needs a good spa treatment!" -- and all the tension it shot straight to hell, as if the screenwriter popped his fool head out from the machine and says "Hey, wasn't that hilarious! Ha ha! Aren't I clever! OK, now back to the action."

Also, Joss apparently gets a big woody when it's tiny, young, attractive women delivering these unfunny quips in the midst of action sequences. And I'm all for it in principle. I'm a strong believer in feminism and fundamentally believe that women should be whatever they want to be. I defend to the death their right to do it, even if I feel it's extremely disappointing to see that what they would want to be is action heroes delivering lame quips. Action heroes delivering lame quips suck. Action heroes delivering lame quips are just men with inadequacy issues who are so intimidated by life's complexities that they can't deal with them in any way besides pretending they can punch and shoot and quip their way through them. Ladies, don't buy into that bullshit! You're accepting the oppressors' flawed and violent worldview. You're being as prickish as the pricks from whom you're freeing yourselves. You've got Stockholm syndrome, embracing the ways of your captors. It's as if black people, once freed from slavery, decided to dress up as plantation owners and go to cotillions. 

OK, maybe I went WAAAAY too far there. But that's a side issue -- the fact that these characters are women really isn't anywhere near the core of the problem. The core of the problem is that it's all comic-book shit dressed up in a good budget and competent plots. It's unrelateable characters spewing trite dialogue while doing macho wish-fulfillment things, thus inspiring hero worship and panting fanboys and etc.

I'm no psychologist. And I haven't ever learned much about Joss Whedon. But I predict that his formative years went something like this:

1. Youth and adolescence spent reading comic books. That was about it.

2. In college, his eyes were opened to women. Maybe he took a few Women's Studies courses and really dug it. He gained an appreciation for women as they really are, as opposed to the horny, lonely male's conception that he'd seen in comic books. Good so far, right? The kid's growing up.

3. Here's where he went wrong: He couldn't get away from the comic books. He awkwardly shoved the Women's Studies stuff into the world of comic books. Granted, that's a world that could probably use it. When your vision of womankind is an amazon wearing a bustier, maybe a little feminism could help.

And it does make for an improvement, I'll grant that. But, at the risk of being repetitive, that's basically just painting shit gold. The basic problem is that comic books suck. They really, really do. They are all oversimplified tropes and cookie-cutter characters with farcically clear-cut conflicts and ridiculously bulging muscles and no discernible human characteristics. And this is all so sucky that anything with a foundation in comic books, no matter how modernized, will suck too.

OK, fine, there are great comic books out there. I've read graphic novels that I found to be terrific. But those are drastic departures from the main comic book theme of simple-minded wish fulfillment, of power porn for the powerless. Maybe they're great for teenagers who really do need porn and are pretty powerless -- I don't know. I have a feeling that Superman is just the male version of Barbie: a culturally constructed ideal form that is never truly attainable and only serves to foster deep-seated feelings of inadequacy. Maybe.

But anyway. Despite all apparent evidence to the contrary, I really don't have that much animus towards comic books. Fine, comic book fans, go your own way, wave your freak flag high, I don't care. We all have escapes -- mine is fantasy baseball, which is just as stupid in different ways. 

Joss Whedon shows, on the other hand, tear at my soul, and I'm still left wondering exactly what values of mine they so offend. Perhaps it's not actually a matter of values being offended. Perhaps it's more about what I started this with, about seeing everyone else put it in the pantheon of Things Smart, Cool People Love, along with "The Simpsons" and "Seinfeld" and all of these other great cultural achievements (and I don't mean that sarcastically) that I totally get, a hundred percent. And I can feel a deep kinship with all the Smart People through these common touchstones ... but then it comes to Joss Whedon shows and I'm like, "Hold on, what? Really? That leaden line delivered horribly didn't bug you? OK, yeah, sure it had the exterior trappings of Simpsonian or Seinfeldian cleverness, but it wasn't clever, not at all; it was un-clever in a freakish, perverse way, like a puppy that should be cute and is indeed fuzzy and small and happy but then has only one eye in the middle of its forehead. Can't you see that it only has one eye? Am I the only one who feels this way? Am I the freak here? Do I have no one?"

OK, that's a bit dramatic. It's just a show, and everyone has different opinions. And maybe I put too much stock in opinions about trivial things like TV shows as far as gauging deep kinship. But it's just very rare for me to be so at odds with everyone I know and love. And I don't like it. I like peace and togetherness. I want to be with you all. But somehow I can't.

"Man, get this guy a dry rag and shrink pronto, kemo sabe!"

Ha ha, yeah, that's hilarious, Joss. Fuck you, Joss Whedon. Fuck you.