Joss Whedon: WTF, Man!

It's hard being a fan of Joss Whedon.  

There are so many reasons to be a fan of Joss Whedon.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer alone is a worthy reason to extol the talents of Joss Whedon. 

Firefly is a classic and darn near perfect television and the Fox executives who fucked with the scheduling and cancelled the show should burn like pigs in hell. 

Dr. Horrible is a work of genius, blending music, comedy and tragedy into an extraordinary event of indescribable wonder and is a reason to lift up Joss Whedon for praise and adulation. 

Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men is some of the best comic book writing on X-Men since the heady days of Chris Claremont in his prime. 

Joss Whedon's Avengers movie thrilled me down to my bones and while Age of Ultron has it's haters, I was for the most part OK with it. 

Yes, Justice League is at best a flawed work and at worst a fucked up shit storm but what I did like about Justice League I attributed to Joss Whedon's influence to bring DC's heroes out of Zack Snyder's darkness. 

Alas, there are so many reasons of late to NOT be a fan of Joss Whedon.

Ray Fisher accused Joss of abusive and unprofessional behavior toward the cast and crew on the Justice League set. 

Charisma Carpenter says Joss created "hostile and toxic work environments since his early career. I know because I experienced it first-hand. Repeatedly."

Carpenter said Whedon called her "fat" to colleagues while she was four months pregnant and only weighing 126 pounds, "was mean and biting, disparaging about others openly, and often played favorites, pitting people against one another to compete and vie for his attention and approval."

Sarah Michelle Gellar, Buffy the Vampire Slayer herself, has distanced herself from Joss Whedon. "While I am proud to have my name associated with Buffy Summers, I don't want to be forever associated with the name Joss Whedon."

Buffy's sister Dawn, Michelle Trachtenberg weighed in as well, responding to Sarah's comments. "You. Are my rock!! What he did was very bad. But we win. By surviving! We know what he did. Behind. The. Scenes." 

Amber Benson who played Tara on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, voiced her support for Charisma speaking up.

"Buffy was a toxic environment and it starts at the top. @AllCharisma is speaking truth and I support her 100%. There was a lot of damage done during that time and many of us are still processing it twenty plus years later." 

Damn!  

Joss Whedon is not the first talented person I've ever been disillusioned by but this one particularly hurts.  I imagine many in the core demographic audience for what Whedon has produced over the years knows all too well the pain of being bullied.  The idea that someone who has contributed so much to geek culture is also a bully. 

How can the person who created Buffy the Vampire Slayer be a misogynist jack ass? 

How can the writer who gave voice to the hopes and pains of Dr. Horrible be so unfeeling about the hopes and pains of others? 

How can the guy who brought us Firefly's Mal Reynolds be a goddamn bully? 

There is no cause for this sort of behavior towards people. Whedon has a talent and a gift that I genuinely admire but it does not begin to offer an excuse for treating other people with anything less than simple dignity.  

To paraphrase Mal Reynolds, "Bullying people don’t work so well as an incentive as you might imagine.”