In less political news ...
Aug. 30th, 2010 02:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
blamebramptonI went to see Joss Whedon at the Sydney Opera House today. I had high hopes for the occasion, but I came away thinking I may not be the right person for his audience.
Firefly was one of my fave cult TV programmes, and I liked Buffy and Angel, too, though I have been too busy for Dollhouse, and Dr Horrible was enjoyable, if not unmissable. So when a friend suggested we go and hear Whedon speak, I was in. After all, I like writers. I like listening to them talk about their processes, and how it can be perfectly normal to take several years to write the one bloody book that should by all sane measures take six months of solid work. They cheer me.
And listening to Whedon was 75% hugely enjoyable. His best line was talking about a conversation he had with another writer -- 'I was round at Stephen Sondheim's house, and we were talking about writing, and I said "My writing will always be about adolescent girls with super powers." and Sondheim nodded, understandingly, and said: "My writing will always be about yearning."
'Because Sondheim is just that much cooler than I am.'
But there was a 25% that made me uncomfortable. And Whedon started it. I went in all supportive and wanting to give the love. But he began by talking about what he wrote, and how it came 'from the dark place. And not the one that women have, not the one that babies come from.' To which I gave a mild giggle at appreciation for a vagina dentata gag well delivered, but after the third riff on the same gag, was more at the fixed smile stage and would have backed away slowly, but I was up in a box, where the stairs are dark and precipitous.
'And all of you are here,' he went on, 'sitting in the dark, on a GORGEOUS afternoon, because you're part of a cult.'
And even though I could see what he meant, I thought: 'Actually, I'm here because my friend wanted someone to come with her, and we thought you might be interesting, and we live in Sydney, where gorgeous afternoons occur on six out of seven days, and perfect weather is the natural order of things.'
But no. 'You're part of a cult, and it's a great cult, the best cult in the world, because you're generous and supportive and you raise money for charity and that's amazing.'
At which point I was simultaneously thinking 'That's generous and inclusive, because you are seeing yourself as a part of the cult, even though it's also true of many other fandoms,' and 'Holy fuck, why are you channeling Tom Cruise?'
That said, I was one of the few people in the audience who had that reaction. On the whole it seemed to be a popular idea, and I feel certain the Church of St Buffy could achieve tax-free status -- at least in California and New South Wales. Certainly its edicts of martial arts practice and regular singalongs would be far less controversial than those of many other religions, and they'd foster a lovely spirit of camaraderie, as well as encourage physical fitness and the sale of Gilbert and Sullivan sheet music.
And then he went on to talk about his own darkness, where the stories came from. And how he had been small and cute as a child, and therefore sidelined and bullied. And again, I could not connect with him, because I am still bloody small and cute as an adult and I will kick the kneecaps of, or at least argue rationally and unemotionally and at length with, anyone who tries to sideline or bully me. But perhaps I had advantages growing up with horses and loads of travel and the occasional war zone, and learned to be more resilient and certainly more able to take control of thick 500kg thoroughbreds, which make muggers comparatively easy.
Then he spoke interestingly about the fact that his literary avatars are almost always women, and I was fascinated, because my main characters are often men, but then he spoke of how he was writing his characters to save him, and to love him, and I frowned. Because I save myself, and love myself, and I have never expected anyone else to do that job for me if I can't manage it myself (which is not to say that there has not been help and love from outside; there has, and that is the source of many relationships and my firm belief in humanity's frequent grace). My characters save each other when they can, and love each other when it's possible, and feel sorrow when it's not. But their job is to tell a story on the page that works for the narrative and for the reader, not to repair some part of my psyche.
By the end of his speech, I was left wondering if I'm actually not as serious a writer as I like to think I am. Or if, instead, I'm just that much less in need of therapy than Joss Whedon is.
It started to make me a little sad, because I had really wanted to like Joss Whedon. Anyone who could come up with Mal Reynolds and Jayne had to be at least partially my type of person. And I suspect that he may actually be, but that this was in no way the sort of forum in which I would discover that.
There were more good lines, though. Wil Anderson, a local comedian, was running the interview part of the event, and managed to keep the giggle ratio up. When Whedon mentioned that he was appalling at keeping with things, and had been very good at art as a twelve-year-old, Anderson said 'I was great at drawing dick and balls, but I couldn't make a career out of it.'
'I don't know,' Whedon said, 'Sounds like a comic to me.'
Wil grinned. 'The adventures of Dick the Superhero, and his sidekicks, Balls!'
Joss leapt in gleefully, his arms out to the side in a passable imitation of testes. 'Here we come!'
'Stop, or I'll shoot!' added Wil.
When the laughter had died down, Wil looked at Joss and said 'that's commitment, growing a beard just for a balls impersonation ...'
One of the audience questioners asked Joss if he had ever wanted to give Amy Acker her own show. Whedon nodded enthusiastically. 'Her own show, her own country ...'
'She can have Australia,' Wil interjected. 'We're short a government at the moment.'
A lad named Henry asked whether, in light of all the vampire related TV shows and *shudder* books that had come out recently, Joss had any regrets. 'Half of my earlier speech,' he quipped. 'But it wasn't me. It was Anne Rice. I read her when I was 15, she was the one who made vampires modern, and romantic. So everything that's around now is all her fault.
'Except for the good ones. They're totally mine.'
The next girl who stood up to talk was named Bella, and she was dignified and understanding when people had a good laugh at this. She wanted to give Joss a hug for getting her through her school years, and they had a virtual one, given she was in the stalls. It was a lovely moment, and one that means I really enjoyed 85% of the afternoon, rather than 75.
And he did have some insightful things to say about writing. He mentioned that not everyone will like your work, and that if you are lucky, then it's the people who you care about that do. Which can sometimes be not the same people as the ones who have money, alas -- especially difficult when your medium is TV or film. One thing Whedon touched on that I was wholly in agreement with was the need to respect characters, especially villains. Giving them reasons, and logical desires and causes for their actions -- because otherwise they're just 'Grrrrrr! I'm really bad! Argh! I'll do you over. Probably. If I can remember why.'
Other notes included that he likes fanfic, even if he considers it's almost entirely porn (as Season 6 Buffy is), that he is a bit boggled by Twilight, and thinks they should all be snogging Dakota Fanning (it's possible I vagued out a little on that point), and that the sole demand we should make of our writers is that they do as good a job as they can, to show respect to their audience.
As I mentioned at the start of this post, I think I was not the right person for that audience. It was me, Joss, not you. Better people for that audience have written about it here, and here, and I went and found those because my views on that talk are like my views on avocado: not representative of the majority. And just as I want the avocado farmers of the world to do well, so I wish Joss Whedon well, even if I may never pay to go and hear him talk again.
I am, however, the right person for Firefly's audience. Because a dodgily knitted hat with earmuffs says Brammers. And I'll viciously kick the kneecaps of anyone who says otherwise.
Firefly was one of my fave cult TV programmes, and I liked Buffy and Angel, too, though I have been too busy for Dollhouse, and Dr Horrible was enjoyable, if not unmissable. So when a friend suggested we go and hear Whedon speak, I was in. After all, I like writers. I like listening to them talk about their processes, and how it can be perfectly normal to take several years to write the one bloody book that should by all sane measures take six months of solid work. They cheer me.
And listening to Whedon was 75% hugely enjoyable. His best line was talking about a conversation he had with another writer -- 'I was round at Stephen Sondheim's house, and we were talking about writing, and I said "My writing will always be about adolescent girls with super powers." and Sondheim nodded, understandingly, and said: "My writing will always be about yearning."
'Because Sondheim is just that much cooler than I am.'
But there was a 25% that made me uncomfortable. And Whedon started it. I went in all supportive and wanting to give the love. But he began by talking about what he wrote, and how it came 'from the dark place. And not the one that women have, not the one that babies come from.' To which I gave a mild giggle at appreciation for a vagina dentata gag well delivered, but after the third riff on the same gag, was more at the fixed smile stage and would have backed away slowly, but I was up in a box, where the stairs are dark and precipitous.
'And all of you are here,' he went on, 'sitting in the dark, on a GORGEOUS afternoon, because you're part of a cult.'
And even though I could see what he meant, I thought: 'Actually, I'm here because my friend wanted someone to come with her, and we thought you might be interesting, and we live in Sydney, where gorgeous afternoons occur on six out of seven days, and perfect weather is the natural order of things.'
But no. 'You're part of a cult, and it's a great cult, the best cult in the world, because you're generous and supportive and you raise money for charity and that's amazing.'
At which point I was simultaneously thinking 'That's generous and inclusive, because you are seeing yourself as a part of the cult, even though it's also true of many other fandoms,' and 'Holy fuck, why are you channeling Tom Cruise?'
That said, I was one of the few people in the audience who had that reaction. On the whole it seemed to be a popular idea, and I feel certain the Church of St Buffy could achieve tax-free status -- at least in California and New South Wales. Certainly its edicts of martial arts practice and regular singalongs would be far less controversial than those of many other religions, and they'd foster a lovely spirit of camaraderie, as well as encourage physical fitness and the sale of Gilbert and Sullivan sheet music.
And then he went on to talk about his own darkness, where the stories came from. And how he had been small and cute as a child, and therefore sidelined and bullied. And again, I could not connect with him, because I am still bloody small and cute as an adult and I will kick the kneecaps of, or at least argue rationally and unemotionally and at length with, anyone who tries to sideline or bully me. But perhaps I had advantages growing up with horses and loads of travel and the occasional war zone, and learned to be more resilient and certainly more able to take control of thick 500kg thoroughbreds, which make muggers comparatively easy.
Then he spoke interestingly about the fact that his literary avatars are almost always women, and I was fascinated, because my main characters are often men, but then he spoke of how he was writing his characters to save him, and to love him, and I frowned. Because I save myself, and love myself, and I have never expected anyone else to do that job for me if I can't manage it myself (which is not to say that there has not been help and love from outside; there has, and that is the source of many relationships and my firm belief in humanity's frequent grace). My characters save each other when they can, and love each other when it's possible, and feel sorrow when it's not. But their job is to tell a story on the page that works for the narrative and for the reader, not to repair some part of my psyche.
By the end of his speech, I was left wondering if I'm actually not as serious a writer as I like to think I am. Or if, instead, I'm just that much less in need of therapy than Joss Whedon is.
It started to make me a little sad, because I had really wanted to like Joss Whedon. Anyone who could come up with Mal Reynolds and Jayne had to be at least partially my type of person. And I suspect that he may actually be, but that this was in no way the sort of forum in which I would discover that.
There were more good lines, though. Wil Anderson, a local comedian, was running the interview part of the event, and managed to keep the giggle ratio up. When Whedon mentioned that he was appalling at keeping with things, and had been very good at art as a twelve-year-old, Anderson said 'I was great at drawing dick and balls, but I couldn't make a career out of it.'
'I don't know,' Whedon said, 'Sounds like a comic to me.'
Wil grinned. 'The adventures of Dick the Superhero, and his sidekicks, Balls!'
Joss leapt in gleefully, his arms out to the side in a passable imitation of testes. 'Here we come!'
'Stop, or I'll shoot!' added Wil.
When the laughter had died down, Wil looked at Joss and said 'that's commitment, growing a beard just for a balls impersonation ...'
One of the audience questioners asked Joss if he had ever wanted to give Amy Acker her own show. Whedon nodded enthusiastically. 'Her own show, her own country ...'
'She can have Australia,' Wil interjected. 'We're short a government at the moment.'
A lad named Henry asked whether, in light of all the vampire related TV shows and *shudder* books that had come out recently, Joss had any regrets. 'Half of my earlier speech,' he quipped. 'But it wasn't me. It was Anne Rice. I read her when I was 15, she was the one who made vampires modern, and romantic. So everything that's around now is all her fault.
'Except for the good ones. They're totally mine.'
The next girl who stood up to talk was named Bella, and she was dignified and understanding when people had a good laugh at this. She wanted to give Joss a hug for getting her through her school years, and they had a virtual one, given she was in the stalls. It was a lovely moment, and one that means I really enjoyed 85% of the afternoon, rather than 75.
And he did have some insightful things to say about writing. He mentioned that not everyone will like your work, and that if you are lucky, then it's the people who you care about that do. Which can sometimes be not the same people as the ones who have money, alas -- especially difficult when your medium is TV or film. One thing Whedon touched on that I was wholly in agreement with was the need to respect characters, especially villains. Giving them reasons, and logical desires and causes for their actions -- because otherwise they're just 'Grrrrrr! I'm really bad! Argh! I'll do you over. Probably. If I can remember why.'
Other notes included that he likes fanfic, even if he considers it's almost entirely porn (as Season 6 Buffy is), that he is a bit boggled by Twilight, and thinks they should all be snogging Dakota Fanning (it's possible I vagued out a little on that point), and that the sole demand we should make of our writers is that they do as good a job as they can, to show respect to their audience.
As I mentioned at the start of this post, I think I was not the right person for that audience. It was me, Joss, not you. Better people for that audience have written about it here, and here, and I went and found those because my views on that talk are like my views on avocado: not representative of the majority. And just as I want the avocado farmers of the world to do well, so I wish Joss Whedon well, even if I may never pay to go and hear him talk again.
I am, however, the right person for Firefly's audience. Because a dodgily knitted hat with earmuffs says Brammers. And I'll viciously kick the kneecaps of anyone who says otherwise.
