TheBuffycreator, once an icon of Hollywood feminism, is now an outcast accused of misogyny.
How did he get here?
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In the fall of 2002,160 scholars convened at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England.
It was not a typical academic gathering.
If the line between scholarship and fandom was vanishingly thin, so was the line between fandom and worship.
It wasnt just scholars who worshipped him in those days.
He was a celebrity showrunner before anyone cared who ran shows.
All the joy of new motherhood had been sucked right out, she wrote.
And Joss was the vampire.
His house is open, airy, modern.
It was a perfect day in Santa Monica, as almost every day in Santa Monica is.
But Whedon wanted to stay inside.
The sun is my enemy, he said.
Scattered around the room were paintings by his wife, the artist Heather Horton.
They got married in February 2021, just after the wave of allegations had crested.
At the sound of the garage door opening, his shoulders relaxed.
Heathers coming back, he said.
She breezed through the room in a sundress and complimented me on my glasses.
Then she was gone.
But there was a problem.
Im terrified, he said, of every word that comes out of my mouth.
For years, he would answer by talking about his mother.
Neuwirth, who has cited Stearns as an inspiration, described her to me as a visionary feminist.
Sitting in his living room, he told me he sees a different side of her now.
Whedon had been thinking a lot about his childhood.
Now, he didnt have much else to do.
The allegations against him had led friends to stop calling.
He was out of work and wasnt writing.
What story could he even tell?
There were things about his life he was only beginning to understand.
Im like,I have nothing going on.
I can do some work on me.
Born Joseph, Whedon grew up in a palazzo-style apartment building on the Upper West Side.
The family spent holidays reading Shakespeare out loud and evenings listening to Sondheim with friends.
There wasnt a grown-up who didnt have a drink in their hand by midafternoon, he said.
Whedon was the youngest of three boys.
He identified with the feminine a testament, maybe, to his connection with his mother.
Whedon now has a term for the damage his childhood caused.
I asked if he would be willing to share his most traumatic memory with me.
Im going to run to the loo, he said.
Returning to the couch, he affected a sort of Vincent Price voice.
And now, Whedon said, tales of horror and woe.
Eventually, his body was found; he had drowned in the pond.
After getting bored, he had walked away, leaving the boy alone by the water.
I didnt think it was my fault, Whedon said.
I knew I was 5.
But it doesnt just disappear as a thought.
There was no structure, he said.
There was no safety.
His parents split up when he was 9.
Basinger, a sort of campus Svengali, surrounded herself with acolytes Michael Bay, D. B. Weiss.
Seen from one angle, these movies promoted sexist conventions; from another, they celebrated womens liberation.
This insight stayed with Whedon, who had no trouble understanding how messy the mind could be.
I have seen the enemy, he said, and hes in my brain!
His avatar was not a fearful young man, however, but a gorgeous girl with extraordinary courage.
He wanted to be her, and he wanted to fuck her.
In 1995, executives at the fledgling WB connection invited him to turn the idea into a series.
Building on his original premise, he re-imagined the monsters as metaphors for the horrors of adolescence.
Like those womens pictures Basinger had written about, the show invited a multiplicity of interpretations.
When it came out, critics mostly read it as the former.
It was the late 90s, after all.
As in so much of Whedons work, the lines between good and evil were blurred.
The good guys sometimes did monstrous things, and the monsters could occasionally do good.
But the media likes a story with a clear-cut hero, and Whedon wasnt above playing the part.
I just got tired of seeing women be the victims, hetoldthe L.A.Timesin 2000.
I needed to see women taking control.
Whedon knew how to talk to these people he was one of them.
At one point, fans became convinced Buffy and another Slayer, Faith, were romantically entwined.
He returned to the message board to applaud her, sort of.
By God, I think shes right!
Dropping the facetious tone, he conceded she had made some good points.
Subtext, he proclaimed, coining a phrase that fans would recite like scripture.
Occasionally, some of theBuffystars and writers would gather at Whedons house to watch episodes.
Theyd huddle around his computer, log on to the board, and chat.
One fan called so quickly he caught her before she had a chance to set up the machine.
Every year, the regular posters would hold an IRL party where Whedon would make an appearance.
Bryan Bonner, one of the organizers, recalled running into him outside one of these events.
Bonner suggested he use the VIP entrance, but Whedon shook his head.
He said, No, Im good.
Its fine, Bonner recalled.
He was always this approachable, down-to-earth guy.
Many found their closest friends through the fan community.
At school, she falls in with a gang of nerdy friends who know who she really is.
But chosen families are not necessarily spared the strife that can plague any family.
I felt very conflicted with the fans, oneBuffyactress told me.
She believed people hadnt been ready to hear about what Whedon was really like on the set.
There was a cult of silence around that sort of behavior, she said.
Whedon was 31when he began runningBuffy.
He had never run a show before and had never been a boss of any kind.
Oh, I see, Whedon recalled thinking.
Youdidget used to it.
By the next year, he would be running two shows at once BuffyandAngel.Soon, he addedFireflyto the mix.
One actor described him as a huge pulsating brain.
There were a thousand things he was tuning in to every moment, he said.
He could make the slightest adjustment and the scene would go from a three to a ten.
A sort of cult of personality formed around Whedon.
Once a month, he would invite his favorite cast and crew members to his house.
They would hold Shakespeare readings in the amphitheater that Cole, an architect, had built in their backyard.
OneBuffywriter recalled Whedon signing posters for every member of the writing staff.
Scenes like this were not uncommon.
The standard reaction to Joss was worship, the writer said.
Even people who didnt worship him told me working with him could be a wonderful experience.
Miracle Laurie, an actress on Whedons 2009 seriesDollhouse,was a size 12 when she got the job.
Whedon told her not to go on a diet.
I still get people coming up to me saying how much it meant to them.
I felt celebrated by him.
Buffycostume designer Cynthia Bergstrom recalled an incident that happened during the filming of season five.
In one episode, Spike asks a sadistic science nerd to create a sex-robot version of the Slayer.
Whedon and Gellar did not agree on what the Buffy-bot should wear.
Sarah was adamant about it being a certain way, Bergstrom said.
The costume she wanted was a bit grandma-ish a pleated skirt and high neck.
He definitely wanted it to be sexier.
On the day Gellar tried the different options, Whedon grew frustrated.
I was like, Joss, lets just get her dressed, Bergstrom recalled.
AFireflywriter remembered him belittling a colleague for writing a script that wasnt up to par.
Instead of giving her notes privately, he called a meeting with the entire writing staff.
It was basically 90 minutes of vicious mockery, the writer said.
The guys were looking down at their pages, and this woman was fighting tears the entire time.
Whedon was rumored to be having affairs with two young actresses on the show.
One day, he and one of the actresses came into her office while she was working.
She heard a noise behind her.
They were rolling around on the floor, making out.
They would bang into my chair, she said.
How can you concentrate?
This happened more than once, she said.
These actions proved he had no respect for me and my work.
She quit the show even though she had no other job lined up.
Whedon told me he had no idea what she was talking about, and Trachtenberg didnt want to elaborate.
The person does not know what happened, but recalled Trachtenberg was shaken afterward.
An adult in Trachtenbergs circle created the rule in response.
The story of Whedons conflict with Carpenter is less obscure.
The actress has been talking about it with fans and reporters for more than a decade.
The tensions with Whedon developed well before her pregnancy.
Another time, she chopped off her long hair in the middle of filming an episode.
In her Twitter post, Carpenter seemed to blame Whedon for her performance problems.
She wrote that his cruelty intensified her anxiety.
She got the tattoo, she explained, to help her feel spiritually grounded in a volatile work environment.
Whedon acknowledged he was not as civilized back then.
I was young, he said.
I yelled, and sometimes you had to yell.
This was a very young cast, and it was easy for everything to turn into a cocktail party.
He said he would never intentionally humiliate anyone.
If I am upsetting somebody, it will be a problem for me.
The costume designer who said hed grabbed her arm?
I dont believe that, he said, shaking his head.
I know I would get angry, but I was never physical with people.
Had he made out with an actress on the floor of someones office?
I dont understand that story even a little bit.
He removed his glasses and rubbed his face.
I should run to the loo.
He had some regrets about how he spoke with Carpenter after learning she was pregnant.
I was not mannerly, he said.
Still, he was bewildered by her account of their relationship.
Most of my experiences with Charisma were delightful and charming.
She struggled sometimes with her lines, but nobody could hit a punch line harder than her.
I asked if he had called her fat when she was pregnant.
I did not call her fat, he quickly replied.
Of course I didnt.
But he did call other pregnant women fat.
She knew he was joking, but she didnt find it very funny.
Did it hurt me?
Did I say, Hey, I got a baby in here, whats your excuse?
In so many unsaid words, yes.
But I think he was actually slim at that point.
My point is, it was a dick move.
But I wouldnt call it abuse.
One day, I took a walk with Rebecca X around the Huntington Botanical Gardens near Pasadena.
I had reached out to her after hearing Whedon had made her cry in the writers room.
Keep going, he told her, as he tilted the chair backward and lowered her to the ground.
Is that a toxic environment?
What is normal behavior and what isnt?
The writers room was as rowdy as a pirate ship.
Did he approach giving notes in a way that was healthy and consistent with the ideals of the endeavor?
Hes a blunt instrument, but Im a very delicate receiver.
Shed always thought the people who worshipped him had it wrong.
I thought he was a false god, she said.
I talked about Joss as if he were a human, and people gave me shit for it.
Still, she wondered if those whod been hurt by him had misunderstood him.
Whedon was not the first boss in the history of moving pictures to make a writer cry.
On his sets, the budget was tight and the hours were long.
And by many accounts, Whedon didnt always clearly convey what he wanted.
Joss is a layered and complex communicator, one longtime collaborator told me.
This means you, the recipient, have to do some decoding.
Can a person have many bad parts and yet another person they encounter only experiences the good parts?
Rebecca mused in one of her emails.
Can we miss the bad parts of people?
I know we can.
I did believe that.
A few days later, she sent me a text.
Joss is a beautiful person, she wrote.
But you know what, she added dryly, Im actually particularly vulnerable to abusive people.
On our second dayof interviews, I asked Whedon about his affairs on the set ofBuffy.
He looked worse than he had the day before.
His eyes were faintly bloodshot.
He hadnt slept well.
I feel fucking terrible about them, he said.
Im not actually joking, he said.
Looking back, he feels shame and horror, he said.
I thought of something he had told me earlier.
Theres this insecurity and arrogance.
They do a little dance.
Buffyended in 2003, but his affairs did not.
He slept with employees, fans, and colleagues.
Eventually, his wife found out.
In 2012, they split up.
In Coles open letter to fans, she accused him of using feminism as a cover for his infidelities.
I want the people who worship him to know he is human, she concluded.
I spoke with three women who dated Whedon after his marriage ended.
He led me to believe he was single, she said.
One night she went out for drinks alone with a friend Whedon wanted her to meet.
After the friend mentioned she had a long-term boyfriend, Sarah asked what his name was.
Im dating Joss Whedon, the woman replied.
Sarah went into the bathroom and threw up.
What the fuck is he playing at?
He was 49; she was 23 and a virgin.
He would pay $2,500 more than Shade made in a month as an assistant.
There was one caveat: She had to hide it from her bosses.
They dated on and off in secret for nearly a year before she slept with him.
Not long after, he sent her a brief email telling her he couldnt have a girlfriend.
Surrounded by candles and crystals, she described their relationship as an abuse of power.
Thats why hes so good at the vampire narrative.
(Whedon says he should have handled the situation better.)
She picked him up at a club.
She and Whedon began a relationship as owner and doll.
For the most part, she found it gratifying, and she believed he did too.
Its not a flattering comparison.
This is not a judgment.
You always take good care of your toys.
That last line is disingenuous.
Whedon read the book, and they talked about the epilogue.
Joss destroyed a beautiful thing just to show he had the power to.
Thats literally everything you’re gonna wanna know about him.
Richard is an ugly hunchback.
Women have always rejected him.
His own mother loathes him.
I am a villain.
It just reached into my fucking guts, he said.
Whedons experienceof seeingRichard IIIcoincided with his own coronation of a kind.
In a profile pegged to its release,GQhailed Whedon as the most inventive pop storyteller of his generation.
By then, he had influenced an entire generation of TV creators.
In 2017, the same year Cole published her letter, an oldWonder Womanscreenplay he had written surfaced online.
Now, those backers were concerned about how their new venture was shaping up.
An early screening did not reassure them.
They asked me to fix it, and I thought I could help, Whedon told me.
He now regards this decision as one of the biggest regrets of his life.
(A representative from Warner Bros. denied this.
From the start, things were tense between him and the stars.
Snyder had given the actors exceptional license with the script, encouraging them to ad-lib dialogue.
Whedon expected them to say their lines exactly as hed written them.
That didnt go down well at all, one crew member told me.
Some actors criticized his writing.
The actors fell silent.
The actors, at least some of them, felt Whedon had been rude, too.
Ray Fisher, a young Black actor, played Cyborg; it was his first major role.
Whedon downsized Cyborgs role, cutting scenes that, in Fishers view, challenged stereotypes.
When Fisher raised his concerns about the revisions in a phone call, Whedon cut him off.
He concluded she had misunderstood him.
English is not her first language, and I tend to be annoyingly flowery in my speech.
He recalled arguing over a scene she wanted to cut.
(Gadot did not agree with Whedons version of events.
I understood perfectly, she toldNew Yorkin an email.)
Reading Gadots quote, she thought, Wow, hes still using that line.
(Whedon denied this too.)
Man, with everything 2020s been, that was the tipping point for me, Fisher said.
(Fisher did not respond to multiple interview requests.)
He had given the whole movie a lighter look, brightening everything in postproduction, including all the faces.
Whedon says he cut down Cyborgs role for two reasons.
The story line logically made no sense, and he felt the acting was bad.
None of the claims Fisher made in the media were either true or merited discussing, Whedon told me.
He could think of only one way to explain Fishers motives.
Were talking about a malevolent force, he said.
Were talking about a bad actor in both senses.
Some of Whedons defenders proposed a theory: What if Fisher had been doing Snyders bidding?
Without furnishing proof, they speculated that Snyder had tricked Fisher into thinking Whedon was racist.
Or maybe Fisher knew perfectly well his allegations were bullshit.
(Snyder declined to be interviewed.)
In our conversations, Whedon was somewhat more circumspect.
I dont know who started it, he told me.
I just know in whose name it was done.
Snyder superfans were attacking him online as a bad feminist and a bad husband.
They dont give a fuck about feminism, he said.
I was made a target by my ex-wife, and people exploited that cynically.
As he explained this theory, his voice sank into a hoarse whisper.
WhenSnyders four-hour cutwas finally unveiled, it was critically acclaimed.
His fans pored through both films to analyzethe differences.
A remarkable reversal had taken place.
Fifteen years earlier, Snyders work was widely seen as the epitome of problematic cinema.
The beginning of the internet raised me up, and the modern internet pulled me down, Whedon said.
The perfect symmetry is not lost on me.
When I asked where theyd met, she said, Right here.
She was greeted by an image of herself when she walked into his home.
Was he using a page out of some crisis-management playbook?
Whedon says hes genuinely committed to the work.
I decided to take control of my life or try, he told me.
The first thing I did with Heather was tell her my patterns, which was not my M.O.
I couldnt shut up because I finally found somebody I found more important than me.
Life was good and also bad.
He still had an agent, but it seemed like no one wanted to work with him.
At Fishers urging, Warner had conducted a series of investigations into theJustice Leagueproduction.
The studio wont disclose its findings, but in late 2020, it announced remedial action had been taken.
The web link scrubbed his name from the shows marketing materials.
Whedon did understand pain his own.
And some of it was channeled into his art.
Whedon once wrote a line that could have served as a warning to all of us.
Aint about you, Jayne.
Its about what they need.
A few months had passed since our conversations at his house.
In that time, hed finally made peace with himself, he said.
Could I have done marriage better?
Dont get me started.
Could I have been a better showrunner?
Should I have been nicer?
He considered the question.
Perhaps he could have been calmer, more direct.
But would that not have compromised the work?
Maybe the problem was hed beentoonice, he said.
Hed wanted people to love him, which meant when hewasdirect, people thought he was harsh.
In any case, hed decided he was done worrying about all that.
I think Im one of the nicer showrunners thats ever been.
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