Joss Whedon

Please Stop. You’ll Kill Them.

This column contains spoilers for Astonishing X-men #12 onward.

So, it appears that the X-men’s Emma Frost is on the side of non-righteousness again, and her entire "I’m trying to redeem myself and make up for my past atrocities!" arc was actually part of her role as a sleeper agent. She infiltrated the X-men on behalf of the Hellfire Club and their disturbing ally, Cassandra Nova, and has now betrayed her teammates.

Ho hum, how drearily, painfully expected this was the second Joss Whedon signed up.

What is it with Whedon and strong women? Not Whedon and strong "girls", or at least his version thereof - they all get happy endings, even when they are, in fact, unacknowledged sexual abusers*. But what happens to his women?

Drawing no conclusions on Mr Whedon’s intentions, here is a WiR style list of results:

Jenny Calendar: Murdered by Angelus.

Joyce Summers: Cancer; died.

Tara Maclay: After being emotionally and sexually abused by Willow* finally asserted herself and became the most stable personality in Sunnydale; promptly shot; died; became catalyst for Willow’s world-destroying kick.

Anya: Sliced in half in one-second death scene.

Cordelia Chase: Became possessed; slept with her foster son; got pregnant with evil Jasmine; coma; died.

Lilah Morgan: Possible redemption arc interrupted when she was murdered by evil!Cordelia; beheaded by her lover post-humously.

Fred Burkle: Graduated from "girl"ishness by coming into herself as scientist and lab manager; died when possessed by demon-goddess.

Emma Frost: Despite heavy emphasis on possibility of redemption was unconsciously evil all along; turns on her teammates. Final fate yet to be decided!

I’m not saying "JOSS WHEDON HATES WOMEN." Given his association with Equality Now and his numerous interviews on the issues of writing strong female characters, it seems evident that he doesn’t.

However, wanting equality and shucking one’s culturally-ingrained prejudices sufficiently as to successfully write it are two different things.

Writing, in the course of three television series and one comic, one strong adulthood-marked woman who doesn’t die gruesomely or betray her loved ones/colleagues is not nearly enough. And truly, I hate to think what might have happened to Zoe Warren had Firefly continued. (We know what might have happened to Inara, and it’s not pretty.)

I’m not holding my breath for a happy ending for Emma, given how thoroughly she’s screwed up. There are hints that she might pull through, and I will be sincerely delighted if those hints come to fruition.

But Joss, even if she doesn’t redeem herself, I’m really hoping she doesn’t bite it. Yes, she’s a bitch. Yes, she’s amoral at best.

Don’t kill her.

People might start seeing a pattern.

* This isn’t Buffy!blog, and I’m not going to go into that series’ (substantial) flaws and (numerous) highlights. However, Willow removing her girlfriend’s memory of the fight they just had and then going down on her in the next episode is hardly consensual sex between informed adults.