The Fall of Joss Whedon

Arguing that it's not actually incest if a man in his 50s has sex with a girl in her 20s whom he met while she was still a minor and whom he co-parented as a father-figure with his then-partner, just because they don't happen to be blood relations, is a very interesting hill to choose to die on. It is a doubly so when that man has also been accused of molesting his adopted child. It is an even more interesting choice when that man literally made an entire movie about a fictional version of himself in his 40s having a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old minor.

You sure this is the hill you wanna die on, @DigificWriter?

 

Let's get a few things straight here.

1) Rick Berman sexually harassed and retaliated against multiple women during his tenure as head honcho of Star Trek, including shaming Terry Farrell at a costume fitting by demanding to know why her breasts weren't as large as he wanted them to be and comparing her breasts to his secretary's:



2) Whedon has now been accused of abusive behavior by at least eleven people of whom I am aware, including Ray Fisher, Gal Gadot, Charisma Carpenter, Michelle Trachtenberg, Amber Benson, Emma Caulfield, Sarah Michelle Gellar, James Marsters, Buffy writer and S6-7 showrunner Marti Noxon, Firefly writer Jose Molina, and Buffy stunt double Sofia Crawford. Carpenter has noted that his abuse literally caused her to experience a medical illness due to chronic stress that she still suffers consequences from today, and that his firing of her after becoming pregnant was textbook illegal retaliation. Marsters has claimed Whedon shoved him against a wall because he was upset that his character had become popular with the fandom against Whedon's plans for the character at the time. Molina has noted that Whedon bragged about harassing a female writer into crying. Crawford has accused him of threatening to fire her and the stunt coordinator in retaliation for them dating. And Trachtenberg has alleged that there was a rule that Whedon was not allowed to be alone in a room with her (she was 16-17 at the time).

Singer, meanwhile, has been accused by multiple people of having sex with underage boys.

So let's get very, very clear here. These guys didn't get their names dragged through the mud. They dragged themselves through the mud through their own terrible, abusive choices.

 

We keep getting disappointed by these people in the show biz and being a confirmed systematic A-hole at best (like Berman, Clarke, Rose, and Whedon), alleged criminal at worst (Allen, Singer and Spacey), automatically makes you a long string of victims who become enemies, and in this ultra invasive information age (with victims having much more of a voice) it's now much harder to bury being a bully and predator.

Though hysteria and false rumours can bloom alongside.

I still like early NuWho seasons, even though it's very unfortunate the likeable, down to earth Mickey was the alter ego of a RL lecherous moron (who allegedly harassed one of his female drivers while AT the wheel) and it was always best not to dwell on Barrowman's bouts of infantile, lurid unprofessionalism.

 

Two people love each other, make each other happy, they happen to be second cousins or something, or are unrelated but grew up in the same adoptive house, what gives you or anyone else right to judge?

The last socially acceptable bigotry.

 

Well. talking in terms of blood relationships, second-degree incestuous marriage is and always has been popular among the upper classes. First-degree incestuous marriage is legal nowhere that I know of and it's a really problematic practice IMO.

 

Exactly, the only objective reason against it is risk of birth defects. Once you’re far enough away to avoid that it’s all about the taboo.

 

Even Franklin Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt were cousins. Roosevelt wasn't just her married name, after all.

 

I was unaware of that. Interesting...

 

Eleanor was Theodore Roosevelt's niece and Franklin was her fifth(?) cousin.

 

So close enough for jokes but far enough away that their kids turned out just fine and then some.

 

Albert Einstein married his first cousin, of course.

 

The Theory of Relativity...

 

If it's a case of facts versus myth or perception, facts will win with me, regardless.

It doesn't matter to me, as an outside lay observer, how Woody Allen's current long-standing relationship gets perceived or what labels may be attached to him as a result of that perception. Nor does it matter to me what perception people might have of him in regards to the allegations made against him by Dylan.

What does matter to me in both instances are the facts, which are as I've stated them to be.

At any rate, I've said what I wanted to say about this subject, so let's move on.

 

Making sure you die on that hill...

 

Well, no. There are some major ethical issues in the idea of ever developing a romantic relationship with your adopted/foster child that have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with genetics.

 

That's quite a cliché. Do we have any research suggesting creativity and abuse are even correlated? Of course, your statement means that creativity and *any* crime should be related, 'cause boundaries...

I think what determines the quota of abuse is mostly the power structure. With celebrities, we notice these cases more because they are in the limelight, quite literally, when they finally do come to light I doubt there are less cases in other workplaces. The more power the abusers hold within the power strcture (church, military, movie guru), the more opportunities, the less inclination to believe the victims, and so on.

I'm sure there's also the matter of preselection (what type of person chooses and gets accepted into these structures), but I doubt the general trait of 'creativity' would provide any insight there. My apologies if I've overlooked any significant research.

 

Jeff Greenwald's book Future Perfect: How Star Trek Conquered Planet Earth includes a bit about the sex parties at Braga's place in the mid-90s, and one of my ex-girlfriends was propositioned by Braga at a convention. None of this rises to the level of misconduct, and as far as I know no one's accused him to such. I'm merely pointing out that he had a history.

 

Cause of the age difference and power differential, but nothing that isn’t also true of bosses dating employees.

 

Which is also a taboo. For a reason.

Although, there is still a difference, because someone who isn't your boss anymore usually doesn't have anymore power over you, whereas that kind of state can almost never be truly reached by a parent.