Whedon Studies

Can popularized images of lesbians exist beyond their sexualized stereotypes? At different points Willow and Tara's relationship on Buffy the Vampire Slayer adheres to and transgresses constructed stereotypes. This paper seeks to explore how this relationship can provide viewers a transgressive experience while remaining within the bounds of normative representation on a corporate television network. Willow/Tara's visibility contributes to an archive of transgressive  lesbian representation.

In this chapter, Graves considers the lasting cultural influence of Joss Whedon’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer (WB, 1997-2001; UPN, 2001-03) through the lens of textual genealogy, tracing contemporary intertextual and metatextual references to the show that situate Buffy as an enduring parent text. In particular, the chapter focuses on the close genealogical ties between Buffy and the long-running Supernatural (WB 2005-06; CW 2006-present), which strongly features not only a generic debt and a narrative structure that is directly influenced by Buffy, but also contains both a deep intertext with and myriad references to Buffy. Additionally, an exploration of Supernatural’s extra- and paradiegetic expansions clearly situates Supernatural as a direct paratextual and transmedial analogue to Whedon’s show, further illustrating Buffy’s lasting significance.

Keywords: paratext, metatext, intertext, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Supernatural, transmedia, Joss Whedon, fandom, narrative structure, crossover, WB, Eric Kripke

In the fifth season finale of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (2001), Buffy sacrifices herself to save her sister (and the world) by leaping into a portal with her arms outstretched. In the final scenes of The Cabin in the Woods (2012), Marty refuses to die in order to save the world, instead watching as it crumbles around him. In the former, Buffy is an obvious Christ-figure, while in the latter Marty subverts the trope in his refusal to be a sacrifice. This paper explores the prevalence, meaning, and evolution of the Christ-figure trope in the works of Joss Whedon. Drawing from research in the fields of both Whedon studies and religion and popular culture, I define and set parameters for identifying Christ-figures before exploring the use of the Christ-figure in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Finally, I briefly reflect on the question, what can we learn from the conflicted religiosity of the Whedonverses?

This article will investigate how the creators of Buffy the Vampire Slayer used the opening title sequence. The opening montage evolves to update the narrative, note newly prominent creators, make new implicit promises, evoke different moods, and suggest new things to come. In addition, it serves as a tool to position new and returning viewers, to craft a sense of community among their fans, and to communicate the creators’ understanding of their evolving narrative. Such sequences present an unusually direct form of communication between the authors of the series and their audience. They explicitly serve to prepare particular viewing postures for the audience. The opening titles present a series of promises about what narrative forms, visual pleasures, formal approaches, and themes to expect. They indicate who the authors believe their audience is. In addition, they offer the most direct expression of the authors’ perception of what is most important about the work. Much can be deduced about the changing understanding of the audience and the series by its authors through closely investigating the evolution of the opening credits sequence.

Willow (giving a tour of the high school to Faith): “And over here, we have the cafeteria, where we were mauled by snakes.” Xander : “And this is the spot where Angel tried to kill Willow.” Willow: “Oh, and over there in the lounge is where Spike and his gang nearly massacred us all on Parent-Teacher night. Oh, and up those stairs, I was sucked into a muddy grave.” — “Faith, Hope, and Trick” (B3003)

Drew Goddard and Joss Whedon’s 2012 film, The Cabin in the Woods, has been touted for its smart treatment of cliches and tropes commonly found within the horror and paranormal genres. Amidst the film’s purposeful braiding of playful, ironic referentialities with its extreme gore and scare-factor, the filmmakers also manage to supply a built-in though often-missed strand of hopeful humanism, which ultimately lends to the creation of a cultural product that is neither modern, postmodern nor anti-postmodern but is, finally, something other than the sum of its parts. In this chapter, the authors argue that metamodernism, a recently theorized possible successor to postmodernism, provides a lens through which to distinguish Cabin from strictly intertextual films such as Scream and Scary Movie.  This analysis will discuss several elements of the film that exemplify metamodern sensibilities and consider the genre-transforming potential of Cabin’s championing of the right to one’s own narrative in the face of an unremittingly dire situation.

Drew Goddard and Joss Whedon’s 2012 film, The Cabin in the Woods, has been touted for its smart treatment of cliches and tropes commonly found within the horror and paranormal genres. The filmmakers also braid these playful, ironic referentialities and its extreme gore with the possibility of a hopeful strand of humanism. In this chapter, the authors argue that metamodernism, a recently theorized possible successor to postmodernism, provides a lens that reveals the way the film protects individual interiority, thereby distinguishing Cabin from strictly postmodern intertextual films such as Scream and Scary Movie. This analysis will discuss several elements of the film that exemplify metamodern sensibilities and consider the genre-transforming potential of Cabin’s championing of the right to one’s own narrative in the face of an unremittingly dire situation.

Opening title sequences play an important role in understanding television series. They are “a film within a film” whose “very purpose is to serve a whole array of functions: copyright law, economics, certification of employment in the context of careers, movie title, entertainment, commercials, fashion, and art” (Stanitzek 45, 46). Opening title sequences are but one example of what Gérard Genette terms paratexts, which are secondary texts that influence the reading of the primary text, such as book covers, title pages, author names, interviews, ads, reviews, and public responses. Genette likened paratexts to thresholds or vestibules, in line with Jorge Luis Borges’ description of prefaces (Genette 261). In film and television, opening title and closing credit sequences often function as the equivalent to the covers of a book, marking its beginning and end. Yet those metaphors are inexact. Some films eliminate the opening titles entirely (e.g. Citizen Kane (1941), Star Wars (1977), The Bourne Ultimatum (2007)). On television, title sequences are increasingly contained within the text after a cold open, yet still serve to mark its borders. Lost (2004-2010) and Heroes (2006-2010) popularized the practice of showing only the series’ title, highlighting this function (Gray 74). Yet borders do more than mark territory: they also guide travelers. Like other paratexts, opening title sequences “guide the reader’s attention, influence how a text is read, and communicate such information as to give a text its first contours, its manageable identity so to speak. And paratexts are important not only for the process of textual reception but also for text production; they function as indicators to be aimed for, as structures of literary expectations” (Stanitzek 32). They are a film within a film that is both about the narrative and an independent creation. Even Lost’s sparse title sequence tells a story about the series’ themes of mystery, displacement, trauma, and insight through the rich cult television history of the score’s glissando and its tonal destabilisation (van Elferen 254-258), the title’s swirl evoking the series’ iconic plane crash as it moves from background to fall offscreen in the foreground, and its letters that come into momentary focus before clarity is once again lost. Opening title sequences are a form of narration, a pleasure in their own right, a genre of short filmmaking, and a mark of authorship,1 but not that of the auteur—as “it is the work of specialists, title sequence designers, themselves readers foremost” creating with incomplete access to the series’ final form and contingent on network and creator approval (Stanitzek 48).

Characters involved in crises, interventions, or recovery litter the Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997-2003) and Angel (1999-2004) television series. As part of the fantasy genre, however, the binges and withdrawal symptoms of addiction are linked to nontraditional substances and pursuits, such as black magicks and the vampire’s drinking of blood. Such narratives of the battle between compelled and chosen desires fit right in the foundational story of a girl fated to be different yet who fought to be normal. The two series give its fans the tools to identify a developing addiction through Willow’s malignant dependency on black magicks in the sixth season of BtVS and the storylines of Faith and Angel that cross both series. But what happens when fantasy television investigates fandom as an addiction? In the final two seasons of BtVS, fans are encouraged to turn that diagnostic gaze on their own lives, as the obsessions of Warren, Andrew, and Jonathan with mass media products mirror the fan’s mastery of the Buffyverse. Yet, the recovery model the series uses to that point faces two troubling questions when applied to media addiction. How does the use of narrative in a 12-step recovery program change when a fascination with narrative and stories is part of the addiction? And can performing sobriety—or learning to “fake it ‘till you make it” (Flynn, 147)—work when imaginative role-playing is the addictive pursuit?  Andrew’s experiences in BtVS’s seventh season give the troubled fan one possible solution.

Long before he was the internationally famous head of a major Hollywood superhero franchise, Joss Whedon was a beloved writer/director of cult TV shows, boasting a dedicated following of fanatics who parsed his every quirky turn of phrase. In the 1990s, when Whedon was building his fanbase with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Kenneth Branagh was at the height of his dominance as a mainstream interpreter of screen Shakespeare, thanks to the series of adaptations that he inaugurated with 1989's Henry V. While Shakespeare plays like Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, and Macbeth have received multiple big-screen adaptations, Much Ado About Nothing has received only two: Kenneth Branagh's own in 1993, and Joss Whedon's, exactly twenty years later. This essay examines Whedon's adaptation through the lens of Branagh's, noting the many conceptual, stylistic, and industrial similarities that unite them—for despite Whedon's insistence that Branagh's Much Ado did not provide him with an adaptational roadmap, the films demonstrate striking similarities in context and content that can't be simply explained by their shared source text. Indeed, Whedon takes pains to distance his own version of Much Ado from Branagh's. Whedon refers to the 1993 film only occasionally in interviews (and generally has to be prompted by his interviewers to mention it at all); clearly he prefers to avoid the issue of comparison. In the introduction that prefaces the published screenplay for Whedon's film (in itself a structural precedent set by each of Branagh's own published screenplays), Whedon's disavowal of the earlier film is much stronger: " I didn't want to try to make what Branagh had already made, " he asserts (Screenplay 24). In describing the tonal differences between his and Branagh's film, Whedon rather dismissively references what he calls a " Branagh-like experience " in working with his own cast, surrounded by " sun-dappled vines and a general air of joy and kind of sunny good times and when I looked at the movie as a movie, I realized that that wasn't the sort of overriding emotion that I was trying to evoke " (Screenplay 21). While Whedon expressly denies having used the ealier film as a model for his own, the new Much Ado bears unmistakeable marks of Branagh's influence. One style trait often associated with Kenneth Branagh is his use of a core group of collaborators; screening a Branagh Shakespeare film is, at points, much like watching a polished repertory company. Branagh's Much Ado features cast staples like Richard Briers (Leonato), Richard Clifford (Conrade), Jimmy Yuill (Friar), and Brian Blessed (Antonio). Behind the camera, Branagh relies on collaborators like production

With dozens of nonfiction books on Joss Whedon’s works from Buffy to Avengers, one critical area has been ignored: Whedon’s comics. In fact, he’s written several series for Marvel and DC, along with independents and the many issues of Angel, Buffy, and Serenity comics for IDW and Dark Horse. While a few isolated essays have tackled Buffy season eight or Whedon’s X-Men run, there is no anthology devoted to only Whedon comics. Now that’s about to change.

Essays on any aspect of Whedon’s comics (as described below) are welcome. The completed essays should be 4000-5000 words. Essays must adhere to MLA format and be friendly and approachable, yet academic in scope and content. New papers or presented conference papers rather than reprints are appreciated. This collection is not yet under contract, but I have several interested publishers who are awaiting a list of essays to be included. McFarland, who publishes most of the Buffy criticism collections, will likely be on board.

Proposal Guidelines: Please send a 350-500 word summary of your proposed essay pasted into your email, along with a short professional bio or cover letter.

Direct inquiries and proposals can be sent to Valerie Estelle Frankel, pop culture author and professor, at valerie at calithwain.com with a subject of WHEDON SUBMISSION.

Abstracts are due Sept 14 (just extended), Complete papers Nov 30, 2014.

Essays on both canon and “less official” Whedon comics are welcome, as are comparisons between Whedon comics and other comics or other Whedon works. Discussion of comic conventions from canon to art to gender issues are also appreciated.  Other areas, like comparing Whedon’s Avengers movie, Agents of SHIELD, Doctor Horrible, or other shows to comics are also possible. On the shows, Buffy is compared to Spider-Man, Superman and Power Girl, Angel is compared to Batman so much Boreanaz was offered the role, Dark Willow parallels Dark Phoenix, Cordy and Fred are called Wonder Woman, and Xander and Giles are compared to Jimmy Olsen and Alfred…there’s paper material there, too. This anthology welcomes established Whedon scholars as well as enthusiastic new writers.

Which comics are Whedon’s? Canon comics include the following Whedon products (as Whedon wrote or supervised them).



BUFFYVERSE

Fray

Tales of the Slayers

Tales of the Vampires

Buffy: The Origin (reprinted in Buffy Omnibus 1)

Angel: Long Night’s Journey (#1-4) (reprinted in Angel: Omnibus 1)

“Always Darkest” (reprinted in Myspace Dark Horse Presents #4 or available online)

Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season Eight (Whedon wrote #1-5, 10, 11, 16-19)

Angel: After the Fall, Angel: The End, and spin-offs

Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season Nine (Whedon wrote #1-2)

Angel & Faith

Buffy Season Ten and Angel & Faith Vol. 2  2014-

See http://valeriefrankel.wordpress.com/2014/06/29/a-guide-to-the-buffy-and-angel-comics/ for a more elaborate Buffyverse comics guide and reading order.

X-MEN

Astonishing X-Men vol. 3: (#1-24) & Giant Size Astonishing X-Men #1 (reprinted as the collections Astonishing X-Men: Gifted, Dangerous, Torn, Unstoppable)

“Teamwork” (in Giant Size X-Men #3, available online)

SERENITY

Serenity: Those Left Behind

Serenity: Better Days

Serenity: The Shepherd’s Tale

“Serenity: Firefly Class 03-K64 – It’s Never Easy” (available online) by Zack Whedon

Serenity: Leaves on the Wind by Zack Whedon

DOCTOR HORRIBLE

Dr. Horrible and Other Horrible Stories by Zack Whedon

DOLLHOUSE

Epitaphs by Andrew Chambliss, Jed Whedon, Maurissa Tancharoen

OTHER

“Some Steves” (in Stan Lee Meets The Amazing Spider-Man #1)

Runaways vol. 2 (#25-30) (reprinted as Dead End Kids)

Superman/Batman #26 (p. 20-21)

Sugarshock 1-3 (reprinted in Myspace Dark Horse Presents #1)



Please contact Valerie Estelle Frankel at valerie @ calithwain.com with any questions.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a seven-season TV series broadcast between 1997-2003 and produced by Joss Whedon as a sequel to the film by the same title produced in 1992. It tells the adventures of Buffy, a high school student--on the following seasons a university student--who learns that she is a Vampire Slayer. In accordance with Robin Wood’s statement regarding all horror films, Buffy the Vampire Slayer is based on normality, the Monster(s) and the relationship between the two. In the series, normality, that is, the patriarchal capitalist order demonizing the Other, is represented by the family, the school, the police, a secret government organization called the Initiative, and the Watchers Council while the Monsters are represented by vampires and demons as well as Buffy and her friends. As opposed to the early horror narratives, the theme of the series is not to destroy the Monsters, which are the embodiments of extreme suppression, and to protect the order but to bring the order upside down. Just like the relationships in a capitalist order, the relationships between the Slayer and the Watchers Council are based on power, domination, possession and manipulation. Buffy’s announcing that she will no longer be taking orders from the Council by saying, “until the next Slayer comes along, they can close up shop” underlines the fact that the Council has financial gain from the Slayer’s fight with the evil. Moreover, the Council pays salaries to the Watchers, appointed to train and monitor the Slayers, whereas it expects the Slayer to do her “duty” for free. After all, according to the Slayer Myth, written by the Shadow Men who created the first Slayer and who are the origins of the Watchers Council, “Into each generation a Slayer is born. One girl in all the world, a Chosen One. One born with the strength and skill to fight the vampires, to stop the spread of their evil and the swell of their numbers.” Although the definition of the Slayer is reduced to one single function--to fight with evil--in this myth, Buffy proves that she can accomplish much more than that by counselling the “problem” students in her old high school, protecting and teaching the potential Slayers and taking over the legacy of the Guardians from the last of the mystic women who protect the Slayers. Eventually, by destroying the spell that the Shadow Men cast while creating the first Slayer and deconstructing the Slayer Myth, which is at the same time a male discourse, Buffy shares her power with all potential Slayers. Thus, she obliterates the imbalance of power which this spell/myth had created between woman-man, Slayer-Watchers Council and Slayer-evil. 
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Vampir Avcısı Buffy (Buffy the Vampire Slayer), Joss Whedon tarafından, 1992 yapımı aynı adlı filmin devamı niteliğinde yaratılmış ve 1997-2003 yılları arasında yayınlanmış yedi sezonluk bir televizyon dizisidir. Vampir Avcısı olduğunu öğrenen lise--ilerleyen sezonlarda üniversite--öğrencisi bir kız olan Buffy’nin maceralarını anlatır. Vampir Avcısı Buffy, Robin Wood’un tüm korku filmlerini kapsayan önermesindeki gibi, normallik, Canavar(lar) ve bu ikisi arasındaki ilişki üzerine kuruludur. Dizide, normalliği, yani Ötekiyi canavarlaştıran ataerkil kapitalist düzeni, aile, okul, kilise, polis ve gizli bir devlet organizasyonu olan İnisiyatif’in yanı sıra, Gözetmenler Konseyi, Canavar(lar)ı ise, vampirlerin ve iblislerin yanı sıra, Buffy ve arkadaşları temsil eder. Dizinin teması, ilk dönem korku anlatılarının aksine, aşırı bastırmanın vücut bulmuş hali olan Canavarların yok edilerek düzenin korunması değil bilakis düzenin alaşağı edilmesidir. Avcı ile Gözetmenler Konseyi arasındaki ilişkiler, tıpkı kapitalist düzendeki ilişkiler gibi, güç, egemenlik, sahiplik ve manipülasyona dayalıdır. Buffy’nin, artık Konseyden emir almayacağını, “Bir sonraki Avcı gelene dek dükkânı kapatabilirler” diyerek ifade etmesi Avcının kötülükle savaşından Konseyin maddi çıkar sağladığının altını çizer. Dahası, Konsey, Avcıları eğitmesi ve denetlemesi için atadığı Gözetmenlere maaş öderken Avcıdan “görev”ini karşılıksız yapmasını bekler. Ne de olsa ilk Avcıyı yaratan ve Gözetmenler Konseyi’nin kökeni olan Gölge Adamlar tarafından yazılan Avcı Mitine göre, “Her nesilde yalnızca bir Avcı doğar. Tüm dünyada tek bir kız. Seçilmiş Kişi. Vampirlerle savaşacak ve kötülüklerinin yayılmasını ve sayılarının çoğalmasını önleyecek güç ve yetenek ile doğmuş kişi.” Bu mitte Avcı tanımının, tek bir işleve--kötülükle savaşmaya--indirgenmesine rağmen, Buffy, bundan çok daha fazlasını başarabileceğini, eski lisesindeki “sorunlu” öğrencilere danışmanlık, potansiyel Avcılara koruyuculuk ve öğretmenlik yapmasının yanı sıra, Avcıları koruyan mistik kadınların sonuncusundan, Muhafızlık mirasını devralmasıyla kanıtlar. Nihayetinde, Gölge Adamların ilk Avcıyı yaratırken yaptıkları büyüyü ve aynı zamanda bir erkek söylemi olan Avcı mitinin yapısını bozarak, gücünü tüm potansiyel Avcılarla paylaşır. Böylece bu büyünün/mitin yarattığı kadın-erkek, Avcı-Gözetmenler Konseyi ve Avcı-kötülük arasındaki güç dengesizliğini ortadan kaldırır.

Resumen: La problemática genérica siempre ha sido un tema clave en el análisis del discurso audiovisual. Actualmente la televisión se encuentra en un complejo proceso de transformación en el que la fusión de géneros está marcando la evolución de las narrativas contemporáneas. La disolución de fronteras se ha hipervisibilizado y las series de ficción norteamericanas se están adaptando a esta transformación. Joss Whedon es un autor clave en ese momento de transición, porque además de ser uno de los showrunners más destacados de nuestro panorama audiovisual reciente, sus series son ejemplos representativos de esta tendencia actual hacia el mestizaje genérico.
Abstract: The problem of genre has always been a key issue in media discourse. Nowadays, television is in transition and the genre mixing or generic hybridity is the most important characteristic in the TV drama. Joss Whedon is one of the most important showrunners in present US television. We will analyze his television shows, because all his programs are remarkable mixed dramas.

""Buffy the Vampire Slayer is inherently concerned with redemption. While this is true for many of the characters in Buffy it is the redemption of the vampire Spike that takes center stage. This paper examines the discourses of vampiric redemption through Foucauldian lenses. Discourses of appropriate vampiric behavior originate externally. For Spike, morality is imposed through the implantation of a microchip rendering him harmless to humans.

However, redemption ultimately becomes internalized and rather than external rules and codes of behavior, leading to the development, internalization and application of “technologies of the self” to become a certain kind of vampire. For Spike the technologies of the self lead him to the demonic tests by which he may regain his soul through his own effort. Spike is searching for redemption and his disciplining of the vampiric self is enterprising, a continual project of identity self-construction.""

Historically, the figure of the vampire has been constructed as harbinger of social and sexual anxiety and has predominantly represented a violent undoing of gender norms and familial and racial autonomy. Interestingly, Buffy’s vampire acts instead as a symbol of traditional kinship and reveals the monstrosity inherent in the patriarchal family unit. Beginning with the character of the Master as the figurehead of the traditional family and moving through to the Potentials as the non-biological offspring of a contemporary and arguably queer family, this paper will explore how normative families are constructed as threatening and violent and the ways in which BtVS offers new subversive and feminist imaginings of kinship.

In December of 1940, Captain American made his national debut on the cover of Captain America Comics #1, as he leaped through a hail of bullets to punch Adolph Hitler in the face. Over the next seventy-three years, “Cap” would grow from this simple, jingoistic beginning to become one of the most beloved characters in American popular culture, as well as one of the most complex symbols of American identity. In many ways, contemporary American national identity has been formed by the Second World War, and Captain America’s genesis during that war is central to his enduring symbolic power. Debate over the meanings and memory of the war began during the conflict itself and continue in the present, with much of the conversation occurring in American popular culture. The character of Captain America embodies both triumphal and critical memories of the war, and provides a historical record of American efforts to reconcile these narratives.

In 2012, writer/director Joss Whedon called upon Captain America as the heart of the disparate group of heroes in Marvel’s The Avengers. Whedon’s Cap embodies several, often conflicting, American memory narratives of World War II, and Whedon explicitly uses the character as an example of national and masculine identities which he believes are largely absent in contemporary American society. For Whedon, Cap is both the idealist whose ideas about manhood, community, and patriotism led him to at least partially submerge his individuality in order to fight a war he firmly believes was just and necessary for the common good, and a veteran of brutal and deadly combat who harbors no illusions about the horrific realities of war. This paper will explore Whedon’s use of Captain America to examine American memories of World War II and ideas about American masculine identity in the past and the present.

Everything I Need to Know in Life I Learned from Joss Whedon Thought Catalog March 2015
ASIN: B00V9H0ESG $4.99 Kindle

Joss Whedon has much to teach his fans, as he unfurls epics of sacrifice and heroism for superheroes and ordinary people. 

Firefly, like Alien: Resurrection, was his anti-authoritarian dystopia, while Buffy the Vampire Slayer emphasized girl power and individuality in a world of monsters. Dollhouse tackled identity, memory and the soul, reaching from fantasy into philosophy, just as The Cabin in the Woods satirized the nebulous "Greater Good." Now, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and The Avengers explore heroism, teamwork, and personal responsibility. Whedon has independent works too, all explored from the paranormal romance film In Your Eyes to his feminist skits for Equality Now. In comics, such as X-Men, Runaways, Sugarshock, and Buffy, he explores unconventional teams and chosen families. 

From Angel's quest for faith and redemption in a world of nihilism to the smaller stories of family and friendships in The Office, Glee, Parenthood, and Roseanne, not to mention Much Ado About Nothing, Whedon offers lessons to improve the world and our roles within it. 

This book compares themes, motifs, and archetypes across all his works, teasing out the common threads and the messages within.