Reading Joss Whedon

482 Pages·2014·4.545 MB·English

by  Rhonda V. Wilcox (editor), Tanya Cochran (editor), Cynthea Masson (editor), David Lavery (editor)

READING JOSS WHEDON
Television and Popular Culture
Robert J. Thompson, Series Editor
OTHER TITLES IN TELEVISION AND POPULAR CULTURE
Inside the TV Writer’s Room: Practical Advice for Succeeding in Television
Lawrence Meyers, ed.
Screwball Television: Critical Perspectives on “Gilmore Girls”
David Scott Diffrient, ed., with David Lavery
“Something on My Own”: Gertrude Berg
and American Broadcasting, 1929–1956
Glenn D. Smith Jr.
Starting Your Television Writing Career:
The Warner Bros. Television Writers Workshop Guide
Abby Finer and Deborah Pearlman
Watching TV: Six Decades of American Television, expanded second edition
Harry Castleman and Walter J. Podrazik
Interrogating the Shield
Nicholas Ray, ed.
TV on Strike: Why Hollywood Went to War over the Internet
Cynthia Littleton
“You Can’t Air That”: Four Cases of Controversy
and Censorship in American Television Programming
David S. Silverman
READING
JOSS
WHEDON
Edited by
RHONDA V. WILCOX
TANYA R. COCHRAN
CYNTHEA MASSON
DAVID LAVERY
SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY PRESS
Copyright © 2014 by Syracuse University Press
Syracuse, New York 13244-5290
All Rights Reserved
First Edition 2014
14 15 16 17 18 19 6 5 4 3 2 1
∞ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements
of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence
of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.
For a listing of books published and distributed by Syracuse University Press,
visit www.SyracuseUniversityPress.syr.edu.
ISBN: 978-0-8156-3364-8 (cloth)
978-0-8156-1038-0 (paper)

978-0-8156-5283-0 (e-Book)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Reading Joss Whedon / edited by Rhonda V. Wilcox, Tanya R. Cochran,
Cynthea Masson, and David Lavery. — First edition.
pages cm. — (Television and popular culture)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8156-3364-8 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-8156-1038-0
(pbk. : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-8156-5283-0 (ebook) 1. Whedon, Joss—
Criticism and interpretation. I. Wilcox, Rhonda, editor of compilation.
II. Cochran, Tanya R., editor of compilation. III. Masson, Cynthea, 1962–
editor of compilation. IV. Lavery, David, 1949– editor of compilation.
PN1992.4.W49R43 2014
791.45092—dc23 2014003751
Manufactured in the United States of America
To Our Families—Blood and Chosen

Contents

Contents by Topic (cid:2) xi “Can I Spend the Night / Alone?”
Acknowledgments (cid:2) xv Segments and Connections
in “Conversations with Dead People”

RHONDA V. WILCOX (cid:2) 70
Introduction
“Hey, Respect the Narrative Flow Much?”
Much Ado about Whedon
Problematic Storytelling in Buffy
RHONDA V. WILCOX (cid:2) 1
the Vampire Slayer

RICHARD S. ALBRIGHT (cid:2) 84
Part One: Buffy
All Those Apocalypses
the Vampire Slayer
Disaster Studies and Community
in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel
Buffy the Vampire Slayer LINDA J. JENCSON (cid:2) 99
An Introduction

RHONDA V. WILCOX (cid:2) 17
Part Two: Angel
From Beneath You, It Foreshadows
Why Buffy’s First Season Matters
Angel
DAVID KOCIEMBA (cid:2) 22
An Introduction

CYNTHEA MASSON (cid:2) 115
Hero’s Journey, Heroine’s Return?
Buffy, Eurydice, and the Orpheus Myth
“Enough of the Action, Let’s Get Back

JANET K. HALFYARD (cid:2) 40
to Dancing”
Joss Whedon Directs Angel
“It’s Like Some Primal, Some Animal
STACEY ABBOTT (cid:2) 119
Force . . . That Used to Be Us”
Animality, Humanity, and Moral Careers
What the Hell?
in the Buffyverse
Angel’s “The Girl in Question”
ANANYA MUKHERJEA (cid:2) 53
CYNTHEA MASSON (cid:2) 134
vii
viii ✴ Contents
Part Three: Firefl y Part Five: Beyond the Box
and Serenity
Joining the Evil League of Evil
Firefl y and Serenity The Rhetoric of Posthuman Negotiation
in Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog
An Introduction

TANYA R. COCHRAN (cid:2) 149 VICTORIA WILLIS (cid:2) 237
Firefl y Buffy’s Season 8, Image and Text
Superhero Self-Fashioning
Of Formats, Franchises, and Fox

MATTHEW PATEMAN (cid:2) 153 MARNI STANLEY (cid:2) 250
“Wheel Never Stops Turning” Watchers in the Woods
Meta-Horror, Genre Hybridity, and Reality TV
Space and Time in Firefl y and Serenity
Critique in The Cabin in the Woods
ALYSON R. BUCKMAN (cid:2) 169
KRISTOPHER KARL

Metaphoric Unity and Ending WOOFTER (cid:2) 268
Sending and Receiving Firefl y’s Last “Message”
Joss Whedon Throws His Mighty Shield
ELIZABETH L. RAMBO (cid:2) 185
Marvel’s The Avengers as War Movie

ENSLEY F. GUFFEY (cid:2) 280
Part Four: Dollhouse
Part Six: Overarching Topics
Dollhouse
An Introduction
Stuffi ng a Rabbit in It
DAVID LAVERY (cid:2) 201
Character, Narrative, and Time in the
Whedonverses
Refl ections in the Pool
LORNA JOWETT (cid:2) 297
Echo, Narcissus, and the Male Gaze in Dollhouse

K. DALE KOONTZ (cid:2) 205
Adventures in the Moral Imagination
Memory and Identity in Whedon’s Narrative Ethics
“There Is No Me; I’m Just a Container”
J. DOUGLAS RABB AND
Law and the Loss of Personhood in Dollhouse
J. MICHAEL RICHARDSON (cid:2) 312
SHARON SUTHERLAND

AND SARAH SWAN (cid:2) 221
Technology and Magic
Joss Whedon’s Explorations of the Mind

JEFFREY BUSSOLINI (cid:2) 325
Contents ✴ ix
From Old Heresies to Future Paradigms
Joss Whedon on Body and Soul

GREGORY ERICKSON (cid:2) 341
“Hot Chicks with Superpowers”
The Contested Feminism of Joss Whedon

LAUREN SCHULTZ (cid:2) 356
Whedon Studies
A Living History, 1999–2013

TANYA R. COCHRAN (cid:2) 371

References (cid:2) 395

Contributors (cid:2) 441

Index (cid:2) 447