Joss Whedon

[itsnotmymind]

Before I saw any of Whedon's shows, when my only exposure to him was his run on the Astonishing X-Men comics (which didn't do much for me), I used to be really bothered and get defensive of him when I read some of the harsher feminist criticisms - not because I had any reason to think Joss Whedon was particularly bad or good at feminism, but because the nature and tone of the criticisms bothered me.

Yet once I actually became a fan of first Firefly and then Buffy, and concluded that Joss Whedon is a genius at television storytelling, I became quickly much more bothered by the Joss-is-my-master-he-can-do-no-wrong people (who I had been aware of before, but hadn't spared much thought or been bothered by). I think these days I've found a more happy medium between Whedon's critics and his supporters - but it still seems weird to me that becoming a fan of the guy led me to be more negative about his fans than I had been prior to being a fan of his work.

Comments

[honeymink]

I think in a lot of cases these days it is necessary to separate the art from the artist if you want to continue to enjoy something. It's always good advice to stay away from fans with extreme view points or at least take everything in and form your own opinion regardless. For example, for a while, when I was bored I skimmed through entries on ONTD and the comments are always so ridiculously extreme, I don't feel like engaging in a discussion but it can become somewhat stressful reading all of it.

[itsnotmymind.livejournal.com]

I think I took a look at ONTD a few times, and yeah, people were stunningly nasty. I'm actually not much of a believer in completely separating the art from the artist - art is so personal, you know? But that doesn't mean I'm going to ignore or dismiss the artist's flaws just because I like their art.

[honeymink]

I agree that it's hard to do that completely and I have personally not really arrived at a good conclusion where to draw a line.

[itsnotmymind.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's a tough one. But I also remember it's not just about art - there are people out there who are good people in many ways and yet terrible people in other ways. You often see people defending friends/family from crimes by pointing out how they are good people in other ways. Someone can like a person for who they are, but that doesn't mean they can't be, as an example, guilty of a terrible crime.

[honeymink]

I suppose. As a victim of sexual abuse and rape it's not possible though for me to acknowledge that. I don't want to go into details here... I had a long thing written up but yeah. Anyway.

[itsnotmymind.livejournal.com]

OK, I won't go into it any further. I'm pulling from some of my own personal experiences, but I don't want to get into that, either. I'm struggling a bit with an apology here - I hope "I'm sorry if I upset you" doesn't sound dismissive.

[honeymink]

Oh no, you haven't upset me at all. Sorry if that came across that way and I would have written more and even tried to be eloquent, I think we had a good discussion going but I realised the post was not locked and while I don't think anyone in rl knows my internet handle... you can never be too careful. I have no problem sharing things with people I'm close to in rl or with people on my f-list but I just don't want to be visible to random people I meet in rl if that makes sense. One reason why I'm not really on other social media and am kind of debating that Instagram account.

[itsnotmymind.livejournal.com]

That makes sense, and I am glad to hear I haven't upset you :)