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Dear Joss,
I hate you. I hate you, you pompous arrogant douchebag. You want the MPAA to take away Captivity's rating (Check out the story at this site)? You call it "torture porn." Let me tell you, sir, you are no man to judge what is "torture porn." Season Six of Buffy is what I would classify as "torture porn." You take one of your character (who, at the beginning of Season Six, was one of your most "female" characters), degenerate him into a helpless sexual pawn who is willing to be used again and again, and let him be beaten nearly to a bloody pulp in an alleyway trying to save the woman he loved from making the biggest mistake of her life. You let him be sexually assaulted TWICE ("Smashed" and "Gone") and verbally abused by almost every other character. THEN, you decide that since your main character is losing popularity and you want to garner sympathy for her, you make her the ultimate victim, almost raped by the other character who has steadily become more popular than every other character on the show. I don't care if you didn't make the call, sir. You should have known what was going on on your own fucking show. I'm not gonna fanwank Seeing Red; Spike tried to rape Buffy, pure and simple. Now, I can still sympathesize with him; I see him as going through some sort of twisted battered wife syndrome, finally lashing out at his abuser. Would it have killed Buffy to really apologize for the things she did to him? And, no, I'm sorry, being almost raped doesn't take away her accountability for the things she was doing to him. Sure, the "Hey, that's cheating!" line in "Gone" was cute until it was clear that Buffy was committing an act of forcible sodomy on him when he obviously wanted her gone (and so did I...guess the title of the ep was appropriate to that extent). Yeah, it's really feminist to take away a man's self-esteem and use him just because you hate yourself. That's GRRL POWER! Don't give me that "She was in a dark place!" bullshit; it's such a cop-out. In the real world, you are still accountable for your actions even when you've been emotionally scarred.
Making Spike Buffy's bitch and letting James be harrassed by both crew members and other actors isn't cool. I don't know what kind of freak show you were running, but in no other studio have I ever heard of such rampant sexual harrassment of an actor; I suppose because he was male he just supposed to tough it out, right? Pornography actors and actresses get treated with more respect by their directors than that! And scaring him into towing the party line by threats of firing him is so totally wrong I don't even know where to begin! It obviously is something that is still bothering him. Honestly, it bothers me a hell of a lot, and I wasn't the one naked for eight hours a day. That, dear Mr. Whedon, is why you have no right to judge what is "torture porn." You also have no right to take away someone freedom of speech. If the MPAA takes away their rating, it means that most theatres will refuse to show the film; that's censorship. The rating system should be done away with all together in my opinion, along with labeling music, but I digress. I saw the trailers for Captivity, and they look no worse than Saw or Hostel. Maybe because a female lead is the one caught in a scary place and is being mentally tortured when Saw and Hostel had more male characters in those situations is the reason it bothers you, since you are oh so feminist! The guy in the trailers for Captivity looks like he's getting the brunt of the torture, so shut your cakehole. Many things in the world have been called the antithesis of mankind, so stop acting like you're the God of What Is Politically Correct. The Sex Pistols for starters, who I like, and they are a hell of a lot more creative than you or this film seems to be. This movie I may see; I may not. I may not go see it, I may not like it, I may hate it with a fiery burning passion, but by God, I will defend its right to be shown in theatres. If the MPAA has already given it a rating, you shouldn't ask them to take it away. Yes, money talks, Mr. Whedon, and since that's the only language _you_ understand, let me spell it out for you. You complaining about how violent and demeaning it is is only going to cause this film to make twice at the box office what it would have. So, you fail!
No love, you asshat.
Sincerely,
Fender
Woman, feminist, ranting bitca, and unapologetically all of these.
I hate you. I hate you, you pompous arrogant douchebag. You want the MPAA to take away Captivity's rating (Check out the story at this site)? You call it "torture porn." Let me tell you, sir, you are no man to judge what is "torture porn." Season Six of Buffy is what I would classify as "torture porn." You take one of your character (who, at the beginning of Season Six, was one of your most "female" characters), degenerate him into a helpless sexual pawn who is willing to be used again and again, and let him be beaten nearly to a bloody pulp in an alleyway trying to save the woman he loved from making the biggest mistake of her life. You let him be sexually assaulted TWICE ("Smashed" and "Gone") and verbally abused by almost every other character. THEN, you decide that since your main character is losing popularity and you want to garner sympathy for her, you make her the ultimate victim, almost raped by the other character who has steadily become more popular than every other character on the show. I don't care if you didn't make the call, sir. You should have known what was going on on your own fucking show. I'm not gonna fanwank Seeing Red; Spike tried to rape Buffy, pure and simple. Now, I can still sympathesize with him; I see him as going through some sort of twisted battered wife syndrome, finally lashing out at his abuser. Would it have killed Buffy to really apologize for the things she did to him? And, no, I'm sorry, being almost raped doesn't take away her accountability for the things she was doing to him. Sure, the "Hey, that's cheating!" line in "Gone" was cute until it was clear that Buffy was committing an act of forcible sodomy on him when he obviously wanted her gone (and so did I...guess the title of the ep was appropriate to that extent). Yeah, it's really feminist to take away a man's self-esteem and use him just because you hate yourself. That's GRRL POWER! Don't give me that "She was in a dark place!" bullshit; it's such a cop-out. In the real world, you are still accountable for your actions even when you've been emotionally scarred.
Making Spike Buffy's bitch and letting James be harrassed by both crew members and other actors isn't cool. I don't know what kind of freak show you were running, but in no other studio have I ever heard of such rampant sexual harrassment of an actor; I suppose because he was male he just supposed to tough it out, right? Pornography actors and actresses get treated with more respect by their directors than that! And scaring him into towing the party line by threats of firing him is so totally wrong I don't even know where to begin! It obviously is something that is still bothering him. Honestly, it bothers me a hell of a lot, and I wasn't the one naked for eight hours a day. That, dear Mr. Whedon, is why you have no right to judge what is "torture porn." You also have no right to take away someone freedom of speech. If the MPAA takes away their rating, it means that most theatres will refuse to show the film; that's censorship. The rating system should be done away with all together in my opinion, along with labeling music, but I digress. I saw the trailers for Captivity, and they look no worse than Saw or Hostel. Maybe because a female lead is the one caught in a scary place and is being mentally tortured when Saw and Hostel had more male characters in those situations is the reason it bothers you, since you are oh so feminist! The guy in the trailers for Captivity looks like he's getting the brunt of the torture, so shut your cakehole. Many things in the world have been called the antithesis of mankind, so stop acting like you're the God of What Is Politically Correct. The Sex Pistols for starters, who I like, and they are a hell of a lot more creative than you or this film seems to be. This movie I may see; I may not. I may not go see it, I may not like it, I may hate it with a fiery burning passion, but by God, I will defend its right to be shown in theatres. If the MPAA has already given it a rating, you shouldn't ask them to take it away. Yes, money talks, Mr. Whedon, and since that's the only language _you_ understand, let me spell it out for you. You complaining about how violent and demeaning it is is only going to cause this film to make twice at the box office what it would have. So, you fail!
No love, you asshat.
Sincerely,
Fender
Woman, feminist, ranting bitca, and unapologetically all of these.
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*applauds*
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Thanks for reading! XD
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I saw the Nightmare on Elm Street films when I was about eight. No harm done. I was bothered for years about Whedon turning my favorite character into a rapist, as an attempted rape victim. Joss can bite my chalky ass.
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By the way, I hate to ask, but have you seen my animation that I posted? I didn't get much of a response, and I was really looking for some feedback on it. I really hate to bother you! *hugs*
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I also love the rest of your letter, and I hope you find a way to send it to him. Or to stuff it up his pompous arrogant butt.
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So what did your professor think of Buffy and the Scoobies by the end of the series? Did she still like them but hate that they were never made to admit to their sins, suffer consequences for their ugly behavior, apologize to their victims, etc? Or did she become so turned off that she's lost all interest in them except for a feeling of disgust?
Heh, you don't know how often I have your same fantasy of forcing the BtVS/AtS writers to listen to why I can no longer bear to watch what were once my favorite two shows. I also have a fantasy that some hugely rich person discovers the shows via DVDs and decides to finance a Spike movie (with a resurrected Fred 'cause I am selfish and they are my OTP), that Whedon gets wind of it and tells the media that he's too busy to write it right now, and that he then discovers that the rich person has already hired a new team of writers because she (in my fantasy it's a woman) doesn't want him anywhere near the project anyway.
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I agree. With splatter films, you know in advance that it's going to be ridiculous and over the top and that the characters are all cartoon cutouts and it's only a matter of guessing the order in which everyone's going to die.
Whedon apparently thought it was more civilized to make the characters real and believable and endear them to the audience before splattering them.
I'm STILL so bothered, even years later, by his treatment of my beloved characters -- Spike, Fred, Tara, et al -- by what he and his crew did to them, and/or what he turned them into -- that to this day I can't watch any footage of BtVS or AtS; it literally makes me feel sick with anger and depression and disappointment.
And to add insult to injury, there's no way to contact Whedon to explain our feelings to him. I want to, even this late in the game, because IDW comics has announced that he's going to co-write an AtS Season 6 in comic book form. I shudder to think what that'll be like. I think that comic books are a poor substitute -- no substitute at all, really -- for the TV show; I want to see and hear the actors THEMSELVES, not drawings of them. But I'd like for the final semi-canon AtS story to be something that will take the ultimately horrid taste of Season 5 out of my mouth a little.
(Redeeming BtVS at this point is an exercise in futility. That Season 8 comic is absolutely retarded.)
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In complete agreement.
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My prof still liked them at the end, I think. I believe she was disappointed in them, but she still thought that they are capable of redemption, which I believe too 'cause if Spike and Angel are redeemable then so can everybody else. The only problem, as she told me, was that the Scoobies have become the type of people who don't have to apologize to anyone. They have become above the secular laws and above normal moral codes of conduct.
I also loaned her all the seasons of Angel because she had never seen it and because Spike's character intrigued her. And did you know that the woman sat there and watched both shows in order together? Haha! She watched BtVS S1-3, then BtVS S4 followed by ATS S1, etc. She said that she was considering writing a new book on her new perspective on the show, how, as I put it, it's a good show to watch if you don't listen to people telling you it's a feminist show, but that if you think of it as a feminist show and you know anything at all about feminism, you will hate it. I was proud 'cause she said she might use a paper I had written for her class about Spike becoming the closest thing to a feminine role model that the show ever had, and that I would get writer's credit. Whoot!
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