Jun
25
Joss Whedon on Writing Strong Women (Geeky Fan Post)
Tags: pop culture
Filed Under Uncategorized | By Melissa Heald
If you’ve read my blog-ography, or met me, you might know that I have a small obsession with Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Well, today I was browsing Sociological Images, a great blog that often highlights sexism in culture, I found this circa 2006 video of Buffy creator Joss Whedon talking about why he writes “strong women characters” at an Equality Now event. Start at 2:00 if you want to skip Meryl Streep’s intro and get straight to the good stuff. At about 6:10 it gets really good.
I realize that by posting this, I am ignoring Joss’ stance on the issue (“I believe what I’m doing should not be remarked upon, let alone honored.”), but I think his comments are powerful and worth sharing. As a Whedon fan, I enjoyed hearing him speak about how his mother, father and stepfather all influenced him and his view of women – but I particularly liked the way he points out that the question shouldn’t be why he writes strong female characters, but why others don’t.
Because equality is not a concept. It’s not something we should be striving for. It’s a necessity. Equality is like gravity, we need it to stand on this earth as men and women, and the misogyny that is in every culture is not a true part of the human condition. It is life out of balance and that imbalance is sucking something out of the soul of every man and women who’s confronted with it. We need equality, kinda now.
In other vampire/feminist news, check out this mashup of Buffy and Twilight. Though I love Twilight, I definitely agree that the romanticizing of Edward’s controlling, stalkerish behavior is problematic, so it was pretty entertaining to see Buffy put him in his place.
Comments
One Response to “Joss Whedon on Writing Strong Women (Geeky Fan Post)”
I like this article. Thank you.