Joss Whedon became "pop culture’s ultimate feminist man" because Buffy the Vampire Slayer arrived as an "oasis in a wasteland"

Jezebel

As Whedon's reputation as a feminist takes another hit with the recent Charisa Carpenter's abuse allegations, Kelly Faircloth looks back at why he was seen as a champion for women in the first place. Buffy, says Faircloth, "was a landmark of late 1990s popular culture, beloved by many a burgeoning feminist, grad student, gender studies professor, and television critic for the heroine at the heart of the show, the beautiful blonde girl who balanced monster-killing with high school homework alongside ancillary characters like the shy, geeky Willow. Buffy was very nearly one of a kind, an icon of her era who spawned a generation of leather-pants-wearing urban fantasy badasses and women action heroes. Buffy was so beloved, in fact, that she earned Whedon a similarly privileged place in fans’ hearts and a broader reputation as a man who championed empowered women characters. In the desert of late ’90s and early 2000s popular culture, Whedon was heralded as that rarest of birds—the feminist Hollywood man. For many, he was an example of what more equitable storytelling might look like, a model for how to create compelling women protagonists who were also very, very fun to watch. But Carpenter’s accusations appear to have finally imploded that particular bit of branding, revealing a different reality behind the scenes and prompting a reevaluation of the entire arc of Whedon’s career: who he was and what he was selling all along." As Faircloth notes, Buffy premiered in March 1997, when the landscape for strong female stories was dismal. "It was the conflicted era of girl power, a concept that sprang up in the wake of the successes of the second-wave feminist movement and the backlash that followed," says Faircloth. "Young women were constantly exposed to you-can-do-it messaging that juxtaposed uneasily with the reality of the world around them. This was the era of sh*tty, sexist jokes about every woman who came into Bill Clinton’s orbit and the leering response to the arrival of Britney Spears; Rush Limbaugh was a fairly mainstream figure. At one point, Buffy competed against Ally McBeal, a show that dedicated an entire episode to a dancing computer-generated baby following around its lawyer main character, her biological clock made zanily literal...Against that background, Buffy was a landmark. Besides the simple fact of its woman protagonist, there were unique plots, like the coming-out story for her friend Willow." But over the past decade, Whedon's reputation as a feminist began to wane in the aftermath of Dollhouse and with his ex-wife's Kai Cole's cheating allegations. "Whedon garnered a reputation as pop culture’s ultimate feminist man because Buffy did stand out so much, an oasis in a wasteland," says Faircloth. "But in 2021, the idea of a lone man being responsible for creating women’s stories—one who told the New York Times, 'I seem to be the guy for strong action women'—seems like a relic. It’s depressing to consider how many years Hollywood’s first instinct for 'strong action women' wasn’t a woman, and to think about what other people could have done with those resources. When Wonder Woman finally reached the screen, to great acclaim, it was with a woman as director. Besides, Whedon didn’t make Buffy all by himself—many, many women contributed, from the actresses to the writers to the stunt workers, and his reputation grew so large it eclipsed their part in the show’s creation. Even as he preached feminism, Whedon benefitted from one of the oldest, most sexist stereotypes: the man who’s a benevolent, creative genius."