My Essay

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DrusillaRox

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I have been studying Human rights hero's at school and I need to write an essay. I luckily manged to talk my teacher into letting me write mine On Joss Whedon, my hero. I'm actually looking at the trascript of his equality now spech as I write this.

American Rhetoric: Joss Whedon - Equality Now Address

I'm very excited. So, I have a quston for all you students here, hav you even done a Jossverse related assignment?
 
Ah, I've done a biology powerpoint about animal evolution with all BtVS background. 😉

And another assignment of language class that you have to write what you read in a notebook everyday. I wrote BtVS quotes and BtVS characters' profile everyday in my notebook and guess what, I got a third prize of creative writing. 🙂
 
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DrusillaRox
actually I asked both
Oh, It would seem I need your help

So you may or may not know that i'm writing an essay about Joss Whedon. This is from a Feminist Hero point of view. And I'm a little stuck, not really sure what to write.

Suggestions? Comments? Concerns?
 
MinwaraYana
MinwaraYana
Oh sorry I didnt help. I thought you ask if we ever done any Jossverse assignment. *Konks myself*
Recently I did a textual analysis of the whole Buffy show. I talked about different camera shots and the like, codes and conventions of the multiple genres it covers, also went into the different ways it influences it's audience and stuff. I got top grade for it which was cool. I still have it too 😀
 
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Perny
If I ate your brain, I'd be smart...And if I was PMS'ing I wouldn't go to jail for it....You better watch out Moz
Ah, that's cool. We never get to write anything like this at school. At the beginning of the year we got to write a TV show review, but we had to write it about something that was currently airing, so I couldn't do BtVS. And I wanted to write something about it for the topic we're doing now (arguements) but I ended up with stupid animal cruelty (Okay, so I picked it, but only cause I couldn't do the other things! And all the populars were doing size zero. They're all gonna get it wrong anyway because they thought that it was UK size four to American size 0 and when I tried to point out it was the other way around, I just got dirty looks...Okay, am I going way off topic here? Yes? okay then.) That was neat, by the way.
 
I decided to post the thing...

Does the world need heroes? This essay will explain how Joss Whedon is a hero.
It will discuss his life and how he is a hero.
It will also cover what human rights are and what the UN and UDHR is, and how he fought for the human rights of women.

Joss Whedon was born on June 23rd 1964. He is 44 years old.
He graduated from Wesleyan university in 1987. Joss lived in the UK from 1980-1982.
His full name is Joseph Hill Whedon. 1.93 centimetres tall.
His wife's name is Kai Cole, he has two children. A son, Arden, whose godparents are Alexis Denisof and Alyson Hannigan (Wesley Wyndham Pryce of "Angel" and Willow Rosenberg of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer")
Born in late 2004/ early 2005, was Joss Whedon's daughter, Squire.
The silent episode of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", "Hush" was nominated for an emmy. The episode featured 28 minutes without dialogue.
Joss is arguably the first 3rd generation television writer, as his granfather and father both wrote television shows.
His cult hit "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" lasted 7 seasons and got 2 comic spinoffs, one being a sequel, the other being set in futer manhatten.
Joss Whedon's television show "Firefly" lasted just one season, yet somehoe led to the movie "Serenity"
Joss has claimed that his favourite thing he has ever writted is his script for "Our Mrs. Reynolds", an episode of "Firefly"
He is related to Jed Whedon - Video Music Composer.

I think Joss Whedon is a human rights hero because of his strong feminist stance in the public eye, with all 4 of his television shows featuring strong, female characters and sorrounding them with male characters who support them.
He made a speech, featuring an introduction by Meryl Streep. The speech consisted mostly of different answers to a question Joss has been frequently asked in different interviews "So, uh, why do you write all these strong female characters?"
I have three favourite anwsers in this speech. They are: "Why are you even asking me this?! This is like interview number 50 in a row. How is it possible that this is even a question? Honestly, seriously, why are you -- why did you write that down? Why do you -- Why aren’t you asking a hundred other guys why they don’t write strong women characters? I believe that what I am doing should not be remarked upon, let alone honored and there are other people doing it. But, seriously, this question is ridiculous and you just gotta stop.", "Because equality is not a concept. It’s not something we should be striving for. It’s a necessity. Equality is like gravity, we need it to stand on this earth as men and women, and the misogyny that is in every culture is not a true part of the human condition. It is life out of balance and that imbalance is sucking something out of the soul of every man and women who’s confronted with it. We need equality, kinda now." and, of course "Because you’re still asking me that question."

This essay has shown why Joss Whedon is a human rights hero.

So here's what my teacher wrote on my essay....

Rikki you have done a great job on this essay. You have structured it well. Next time please use the TIE format. You haven't clearly shown what human rights Joss worked towards, you did however sgow he has improved the standing of women in TV/ movies. Well done for picking someone diffeent, that's very cool!
 
Actually, I'm doing a presentation on Frankenstein in my British Literature class and I'm hoping to somehow integrate Buffy into it 🙂 I have a section in the presentation of popular culture interpretations of the story, and I think I can fit some Buffy scenes in there. Probobly something with Adam from S4.
 
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randiann
Or the season 2 ep where they bring the brother back to life and then want to use cordy's head to finish his new "girlfriend" they are building...I can't remember what it's called; some assembly required maybe?
I was hesitant when people called Joss Whedon a genius. I was aghast when he was given a 'Lifetime Achievement' award for two shows and what effectively turned out to be a long miniseries. Joss Whedon being called a human rights hero goes beyond the pale.
 
JCC said:
I was hesitant when people called Joss Whedon a genius. I was aghast when he was given a 'Lifetime Achievement' award for two shows and what effectively turned out to be a long miniseries. Joss Whedon being called a human rights hero goes beyond the pale.
Click to expand...

I think it's safe to say that Joss Whedon has done more than just two shows etc.

You have every right to decide whether you think Joss is a genius or not.

But your last comment is very unfair to DrusillaRox. She's put her work on here for people to see and has given several reasons why Joss is an advocate of human rights, and it really isn't fair to make such unsupported comments.
 
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DrusillaRox
thanks. I was a little hurt by that comment.
They're not unsupported comments. I can understand why she didn't want to focus on generic figures, but I read her essay and I didn't see the link between Joss Whedon's work and comments and being a human rights 'hero'. He's gone a short way towards legitimizing the portrayal of a strong woman in popular culture, but that's been done before too. I'm not trying to play Devil's Advocate or imply that Joss Whedon's efforts are entirely useless, but I'm baffled as to how anyone could see him as a human rights hero on the basis of 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' any more than they would, say, Ridley Scott for 'Alien'.
 
Sorry!

I do have something to add on topic though...

I've got an essay in for next week about vampires. I don't think I'll get much Buffy into it though as its meant to be about Gothic Literature; Stoker's Dracula and Polidori's The Vampyre. I might squeeze it in anyway for the hell of it.

And in two weeks I'm doing a presentation arguing that Anne Rice's vampires are just like human characters. I'll probably use it in this somewhere to help support my argument.
 
Joan the Vampire Slayer
Joan the Vampire Slayer
Sounds interesting!
Joss has won and been nominated for quite a few awards, including the Ray Bradbury award, Nebula awards, Annie awards, Academy of Science Fiction, Saturn Awards, quite a few Oscars, and most recently, the 2009 Lifetime Achievement award honoring his work with Equality Now. That's nothing to sneeze at, as my mother would say.

---------- Post added at 01:32 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:25 PM ----------

JCC said:
They're not unsupported comments. I can understand why she didn't want to focus on generic figures, but I read her essay and I didn't see the link between Joss Whedon's work and comments and being a human rights 'hero'. He's gone a short way towards legitimizing the portrayal of a strong woman in popular culture, but that's been done before too. I'm not trying to play Devil's Advocate or imply that Joss Whedon's efforts are entirely useless, but I'm baffled as to how anyone could see him as a human rights hero on the basis of 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' any more than they would, say, Ridley Scott for 'Alien'.
Click to expand...

I don't think that people think of him as a human rights hero because of his work on Buffy. I think people refer to him as that due to his work with Equality Now and also to a lesser extent, his intention of creating Buffy to be a feminist icon.

Also, DrusillaRox mentioned that he was her hero. There is a difference there. Anyone has the right to name anyone their hero, it is not your decision to deside who is worthy of being anyone's hero. 😉 A culture hero is defined as someone whom changes the culture he or she is a part of by creating something unique. Well, it's for you deside if you think Joss' work has made enough of an impact to effect the world of pop culture - but regardless of your stance, my point is that anyone can claim that anyone is a hero - what does it matter, anyway? After all, heroes create things or do things for the benefit of others, and Buffy benefits us, it makes us happy, it entertains us, it teaches us and soothes us. Agreed?

I'm yaking. Gotta get back to rehearsal.
 
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