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Post by politicidal on Jun 18, 2017 5:13:09 GMT
From what I heard, it's astonishingly awful and sexist. What the hell, Joss?
Text:
The script resurfaced on Twitter last night, this time being heavily criticized by female Wonder Woman fans. It’s easy to see why, because this thing is so sexist it’s hard to believe Whedon wrote and submitted it on a professional basis. Constantly sexualizing and demeaning its lead character, it’s like an evil mirror universe version of the movie we eventually got.
Diana’s introduction is the first warning sign, describing her “curvaceous” body instead of her thoughts or personality. It starts an ongoing theme of lurid descriptions of women’s appearances. (Especially their feet. Diana is barefoot in scene one, and we get several foot updates later on.)
Leaked by Indie Ground Films, the screenplay is widely regarded to be the real deal. It’s watermarked for Silver Pictures and dated 2006 (fitting the timeline for when Whedon was hired to write the movie), and it fits Whedon’s distinctive writing style and his own descriptions of the project. Taking place in the present day, it reframes Diana’s origin story as a tale about Steve Trevor crash-landing on Themyscira and teaching Diana how to be “human.”
Rather than focusing on Diana’s strength and compassion, she’s portrayed as an arrogant yet clueless warrior, perpetually disrespected by every man in the film. One scene takes place in a nightclub where Diana confronts the villain Bacchus by—how else?—doing a sexy dance until he notices. The whole thing takes place from a leering male perspective, concluding with men fighting over her on the dancefloor.
Bacchus, when he shows up, is “funky, unassuming,” and “cute in a sheepish kind of way,” with a love of Buffy-esque dialogue and pop culture references. In other words, he’s a typical Whedon stand-in like Topher Brink in Dollhouse, designed to be funny yet pathetic, with a desire to humiliate powerful women before they inevitably humiliate him. (This is one of Whedon’s favorite tropes, echoing the trio of nerdy fanboy villains in Buffy‘s sixth season, and Loki calling Black Widow a “mewling quim” in The Avengers. This time round, we get Bacchus calling Diana a “feisty little filly.”)
The screenplay displays a toxic attitude to Diana, with characters calling her a “bitch” or a “whore,” and commenting on her skimpy costume. Instead of being a feminist paradise, Themyscira is plagued by infighting and a lack of empathy for outsiders, and Diana even fights her own mother. Then there’s Steve Trevor, who overshadows Diana’s role from page one.
Steve Trevor spends the entire movie mansplaining to Diana, arguing and criticizing her brand of heroism. It’s a startling contrast with Allan Heinberg and Patty Jenkins’ depiction in the real movie, where Steve supports Diana, and the two characters enjoy each other’s company.
Whedon’s vision is completely warped by his own perspective: male, horny, and ashamed. Men are universally depicted as sexist pigs, but this isn’t actually beneficial to Diana’s role as a feminist hero. Her interior life is barely explored, making it hard to gauge what she thinks or feels at any given moment. By comparison, Jenkins and Heinberg’s movie focuses on Diana’s emotional journey, depicting her as an optimistic force amid the horrors of World War I. She does face some sexism, but she also befriends men who share her goals and respect her.
In the end, Steve is rewarded with a passionate kiss, immediately followed by a joke about him imagining her kissing the other Amazons. It’s almost as if Heinberg and Jenkins took this screenplay as a “what not to do” manual, and made a film with the exact opposite attitude to Diana’s sexuality, personality, and heroism.
Over the last few years, Joss Whedon has faced more and more criticism from women who loved his earlier work. Buffy is still considered groundbreaking and feminist for its time, but as Whedon’s career progressed, fans noticed some troubling themes. Namely, he’s obsessed with writing waif-like white women who combine physical strength with emotional fragility, and his pop-culture quips often overtake the need for solid characterization. (For instance, Avengers: Age of Ultron introduced a cringeworthy infertility subplot for Black Widow and gave several characters jokes that didn’t fit their personalities.)
But for all that criticism, Whedon isn’t generally considered to be a sexist filmmaker in the same way as, say, Michael Bay. The consensus is that while Buffy remains iconic, he just didn’t move with the times. Written in 2006, this screenplay suggests something worse. Along with being horribly written (“Get yo skank ass offa me,” a gangster tells his girlfriend during the nightclub scene), it portrays Wonder Woman as sexy, arrogant, and unlikeable, constantly dragged down by her love interest’s bitter critiques.
We really dodged a bullet when this screenplay was rejected. The bad news is, he’s now on track to write, direct, and produce the Batgirl movie.
(The Daily Dot)
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barkingbaphomet
Junior Member
all backlit and creepysmoking
@barkingbaphomet
Posts: 2,252
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Post by barkingbaphomet on Jun 18, 2017 6:13:07 GMT
i'm surprised more of Whedon's work hasn't (fallaciously) been deconstructed as misogynist.
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Post by DC-Fan on Jun 18, 2017 6:57:15 GMT
From what I heard, it's astonishingly awful and sexist. What the hell, Joss? Text: The script resurfaced on Twitter last night, this time being heavily criticized by female Wonder Woman fans. It’s easy to see why, because this thing is so sexist it’s hard to believe Whedon wrote and submitted it on a professional basis. Constantly sexualizing and demeaning its lead character, it’s like an evil mirror universe version of the movie we eventually got. Diana’s introduction is the first warning sign, describing her “curvaceous” body instead of her thoughts or personality. It starts an ongoing theme of lurid descriptions of women’s appearances. (Especially their feet. Diana is barefoot in scene one, and we get several foot updates later on.) Leaked by Indie Ground Films, the screenplay is widely regarded to be the real deal. It’s watermarked for Silver Pictures and dated 2006 (fitting the timeline for when Whedon was hired to write the movie), and it fits Whedon’s distinctive writing style and his own descriptions of the project. Taking place in the present day, it reframes Diana’s origin story as a tale about Steve Trevor crash-landing on Themyscira and teaching Diana how to be “human.” Rather than focusing on Diana’s strength and compassion, she’s portrayed as an arrogant yet clueless warrior, perpetually disrespected by every man in the film. One scene takes place in a nightclub where Diana confronts the villain Bacchus by—how else?—doing a sexy dance until he notices. The whole thing takes place from a leering male perspective, concluding with men fighting over her on the dancefloor. Bacchus, when he shows up, is “funky, unassuming,” and “cute in a sheepish kind of way,” with a love of Buffy-esque dialogue and pop culture references. In other words, he’s a typical Whedon stand-in like Topher Brink in Dollhouse, designed to be funny yet pathetic, with a desire to humiliate powerful women before they inevitably humiliate him. (This is one of Whedon’s favorite tropes, echoing the trio of nerdy fanboy villains in Buffy‘s sixth season, and Loki calling Black Widow a “mewling quim” in The Avengers. This time round, we get Bacchus calling Diana a “feisty little filly.”) The screenplay displays a toxic attitude to Diana, with characters calling her a “bitch” or a “whore,” and commenting on her skimpy costume. Instead of being a feminist paradise, Themyscira is plagued by infighting and a lack of empathy for outsiders, and Diana even fights her own mother. Then there’s Steve Trevor, who overshadows Diana’s role from page one. Steve Trevor spends the entire movie mansplaining to Diana, arguing and criticizing her brand of heroism. It’s a startling contrast with Allan Heinberg and Patty Jenkins’ depiction in the real movie, where Steve supports Diana, and the two characters enjoy each other’s company. Whedon’s vision is completely warped by his own perspective: male, horny, and ashamed. Men are universally depicted as sexist pigs, but this isn’t actually beneficial to Diana’s role as a feminist hero. Her interior life is barely explored, making it hard to gauge what she thinks or feels at any given moment. By comparison, Jenkins and Heinberg’s movie focuses on Diana’s emotional journey, depicting her as an optimistic force amid the horrors of World War I. She does face some sexism, but she also befriends men who share her goals and respect her. In the end, Steve is rewarded with a passionate kiss, immediately followed by a joke about him imagining her kissing the other Amazons. It’s almost as if Heinberg and Jenkins took this screenplay as a “what not to do” manual, and made a film with the exact opposite attitude to Diana’s sexuality, personality, and heroism. Over the last few years, Joss Whedon has faced more and more criticism from women who loved his earlier work. Buffy is still considered groundbreaking and feminist for its time, but as Whedon’s career progressed, fans noticed some troubling themes. Namely, he’s obsessed with writing waif-like white women who combine physical strength with emotional fragility, and his pop-culture quips often overtake the need for solid characterization. (For instance, Avengers: Age of Ultron introduced a cringeworthy infertility subplot for Black Widow and gave several characters jokes that didn’t fit their personalities.) But for all that criticism, Whedon isn’t generally considered to be a sexist filmmaker in the same way as, say, Michael Bay. The consensus is that while Buffy remains iconic, he just didn’t move with the times. Written in 2006, this screenplay suggests something worse. Along with being horribly written (“Get yo skank ass offa me,” a gangster tells his girlfriend during the nightclub scene), it portrays Wonder Woman as sexy, arrogant, and unlikeable, constantly dragged down by her love interest’s bitter critiques. We really dodged a bullet when this screenplay was rejected. The bad news is, he’s now on track to write, direct, and produce the Batgirl movie. (The Daily Dot) If this is true, then we really did dodge a bullet. A Wonder Woman movie like that would've probably been a bigger flop than Catwoman and would've put an end to any more female superhero movies. It's a good thing that WB passed on that crap and got the right director and right actress for Wonder Woman.
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Post by politicidal on Jun 18, 2017 12:37:20 GMT
But as the article mentioned, he's assigned to Batgirl. I don't want this Joss Whedon as director. Whatever the hell his mind was at the time he penned this script, I don't want him to revisit it.
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northernlad
Sophomore
@northernlad
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Post by northernlad on Jun 18, 2017 13:54:33 GMT
Wow! Just wow! So glad we didn't end up with that disaster. And thankfully someone at WB had enough sense to put the smack down on that one.
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chatterer
Sophomore
@chatterer
Posts: 272
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Post by chatterer on Jun 18, 2017 14:49:05 GMT
That old WW script should serve as a guide/manual on what not to do for batgirl also. Plus having seen what clicked with audiences in WW I'm guessing Joss will write something that's more inline with the current times.
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Post by brownstones on Jun 18, 2017 15:14:40 GMT
Yup.
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Post by thisguy4000 on Jun 18, 2017 15:23:39 GMT
I don't know how Batgirl will turn out, but it definitely seems like it was for the best that we got Patty Jenkins' WW over Whedon's.
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Post by Jedan Archer on Jun 18, 2017 16:09:32 GMT
This article seems to have a strong bias towards slandering Whedon, and it seems to be composed of cherry-picking hyperbole and undue qualifications. In lack of concrete evidence all that is a strong indicators that this article is mere clickbait and not to be taken seriously.
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Post by sdrew13163 on Jun 18, 2017 16:51:42 GMT
But as the article mentioned, he's assigned to Batgirl. I don't want this Joss Whedon as director. Whatever the hell his mind was at the time he penned this script, I don't want him to revisit it. I don't like Whedon as a person at all. He's just a strange guy that constantly contradicts himself. I think they should've picked someone else to finish JL and direct Batgirl.
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Post by thisguy4000 on Jun 18, 2017 17:39:36 GMT
This article seems to have a strong bias towards slandering Whedon, and it seems to be composed of cherry-picking hyperbole and undue qualifications. In lack of concrete evidence all that is a strong indicators that this article is mere clickbait and not to be taken seriously. While I don't have much of an opinion on Joss Whedon myself, it certainly does seem like people online have been quick to bash him for anything that he does, or anything he says on Twitter ever since AoU, and the 'Jurassic World' comment.
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Post by brownstones on Jun 18, 2017 17:52:29 GMT
This article seems to have a strong bias towards slandering Whedon, and it seems to be composed of cherry-picking hyperbole and undue qualifications. In lack of concrete evidence all that is a strong indicators that this article is mere clickbait and not to be taken seriously. i'd say read articles prior to this, because right now it's all bound to be a bit biased towards Gal's WW, but even before this film came out Whedon's script didn't sound great.
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skribb
Sophomore
IMDb since June 2005
@skribb
Posts: 767
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Post by skribb on Jun 18, 2017 19:02:37 GMT
I will remain hesitant regarding the veracity of this article for the time being, but I will be keeping my eyes open.
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Post by taylorfirst1 on Jun 19, 2017 0:00:29 GMT
I doubt the accuracy of this article. But I have a different question. Has anyone heard of of any reaction by Joss Whedon to the new WW movie? Has he complimented it or given any opinion about it?
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Post by seahawksraawk00 on Jun 19, 2017 0:09:30 GMT
From what I heard, it's astonishingly awful and sexist. What the hell, Joss? Text: The script resurfaced on Twitter last night, this time being heavily criticized by female Wonder Woman fans. It’s easy to see why, because this thing is so sexist it’s hard to believe Whedon wrote and submitted it on a professional basis. Constantly sexualizing and demeaning its lead character, it’s like an evil mirror universe version of the movie we eventually got. Diana’s introduction is the first warning sign, describing her “curvaceous” body instead of her thoughts or personality. It starts an ongoing theme of lurid descriptions of women’s appearances. (Especially their feet. Diana is barefoot in scene one, and we get several foot updates later on.) Leaked by Indie Ground Films, the screenplay is widely regarded to be the real deal. It’s watermarked for Silver Pictures and dated 2006 (fitting the timeline for when Whedon was hired to write the movie), and it fits Whedon’s distinctive writing style and his own descriptions of the project. Taking place in the present day, it reframes Diana’s origin story as a tale about Steve Trevor crash-landing on Themyscira and teaching Diana how to be “human.” Rather than focusing on Diana’s strength and compassion, she’s portrayed as an arrogant yet clueless warrior, perpetually disrespected by every man in the film. One scene takes place in a nightclub where Diana confronts the villain Bacchus by—how else?—doing a sexy dance until he notices. The whole thing takes place from a leering male perspective, concluding with men fighting over her on the dancefloor. Bacchus, when he shows up, is “funky, unassuming,” and “cute in a sheepish kind of way,” with a love of Buffy-esque dialogue and pop culture references. In other words, he’s a typical Whedon stand-in like Topher Brink in Dollhouse, designed to be funny yet pathetic, with a desire to humiliate powerful women before they inevitably humiliate him. (This is one of Whedon’s favorite tropes, echoing the trio of nerdy fanboy villains in Buffy‘s sixth season, and Loki calling Black Widow a “mewling quim” in The Avengers. This time round, we get Bacchus calling Diana a “feisty little filly.”) The screenplay displays a toxic attitude to Diana, with characters calling her a “bitch” or a “whore,” and commenting on her skimpy costume. Instead of being a feminist paradise, Themyscira is plagued by infighting and a lack of empathy for outsiders, and Diana even fights her own mother. Then there’s Steve Trevor, who overshadows Diana’s role from page one. Steve Trevor spends the entire movie mansplaining to Diana, arguing and criticizing her brand of heroism. It’s a startling contrast with Allan Heinberg and Patty Jenkins’ depiction in the real movie, where Steve supports Diana, and the two characters enjoy each other’s company. Whedon’s vision is completely warped by his own perspective: male, horny, and ashamed. Men are universally depicted as sexist pigs, but this isn’t actually beneficial to Diana’s role as a feminist hero. Her interior life is barely explored, making it hard to gauge what she thinks or feels at any given moment. By comparison, Jenkins and Heinberg’s movie focuses on Diana’s emotional journey, depicting her as an optimistic force amid the horrors of World War I. She does face some sexism, but she also befriends men who share her goals and respect her. In the end, Steve is rewarded with a passionate kiss, immediately followed by a joke about him imagining her kissing the other Amazons. It’s almost as if Heinberg and Jenkins took this screenplay as a “what not to do” manual, and made a film with the exact opposite attitude to Diana’s sexuality, personality, and heroism. Over the last few years, Joss Whedon has faced more and more criticism from women who loved his earlier work. Buffy is still considered groundbreaking and feminist for its time, but as Whedon’s career progressed, fans noticed some troubling themes. Namely, he’s obsessed with writing waif-like white women who combine physical strength with emotional fragility, and his pop-culture quips often overtake the need for solid characterization. (For instance, Avengers: Age of Ultron introduced a cringeworthy infertility subplot for Black Widow and gave several characters jokes that didn’t fit their personalities.) But for all that criticism, Whedon isn’t generally considered to be a sexist filmmaker in the same way as, say, Michael Bay. The consensus is that while Buffy remains iconic, he just didn’t move with the times. Written in 2006, this screenplay suggests something worse. Along with being horribly written (“Get yo skank ass offa me,” a gangster tells his girlfriend during the nightclub scene), it portrays Wonder Woman as sexy, arrogant, and unlikeable, constantly dragged down by her love interest’s bitter critiques. We really dodged a bullet when this screenplay was rejected. The bad news is, he’s now on track to write, direct, and produce the Batgirl movie. (The Daily Dot) Too be fair, this was written in 2006 when feminism/SJW wasn't exactly prominent. So obviously today it seems sexiest, but back then tho, it may be a bad script but not exactly sexist for 2006 standards
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Post by DC-Fan on Jun 19, 2017 5:17:01 GMT
I doubt the accuracy of this article. But I have a different question. Has anyone heard of of any reaction by Joss Whedon to the new WW movie? Has he complimented it or given any opinion about it? Here's Joss Whedon's reaction to the Wonder Woman movie:
Haven't heard from Kevin Feige yet on the great job that Patty Jenkins did. Feige is probably still crying that he refused to give Patty Jenkins creative freedom to make a better Thor: Dark World so Thor: Dark World turned out to be a shitty movie and Wonder Woman is a great movie.
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Post by JudgeJuryDredd on Jun 19, 2017 6:53:17 GMT
Kevin Feige did in fact praise Wonder Woman and says that he and Geoff Johns are very good friends, both are influenced by Richard Donner's work on Superman: The Movie and what it did for superhero movies.
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