Joss Whedon

Television phenomenon Joss Whedon comes throat to throat with devoted Australian fans

IF television is a religion, then Joss Whedon is its god. Not a particularly physically imposing god (the American creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel and Firefly is a small and imperfectly formed ranga). But a deity nonetheless.

Whedon creates worlds and fills them with extraordinary, flawed beings.

He leaves trails of holy texts, sacred languages and exotic fetish objects.

And yea verily do his devotees prostrate themselves at his feet crying: "We are not worthy" and sometimes also: "But must thou smite quite so many of our favourite characters?"

Whedon, whose earthly miracles include an unholy blurring of the lines between high and low culture, has just made a pilgrimage to Australia to sermonise from the mounts of the Melbourne Writers Festival and the Sydney Opera House concert hall.

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Both gatherings were sold out and prompted rapturous nerdgasms from his devoted disciples. "How does it feel to be god?" media academic Sue Turnbull asked him in Melbourne.

"Awkward," Whedon replied, "because I don’t believe in me."

Ah, yes. Not just a god but a neurotic, self-deprecating, paradoxical god. Beat that, Christian sky bully.

For those TV atheists or members of inferior cults such as the Church of the Latter-Day Hospital Dramas, I will now do the equivalent of knocking be-suited at your door with an evangelical flyer and a plea that you listen to the good word and convert.

So . . . in the beginning there was Whedon. He was a lonely, bullied boy who dug evisceration on the big and small screens but had to cover his eyes when characters lied.

Then, after maturing from helpless child to clueless geek, the funny man who couldn’t get any sex did something remarkable.

He made a TV show. Not just any TV show. Not just another TV show. But a stupendous, singular, [insert more superlatives here] TV show that would change lives and also the way people made TV shows in general.

I refer, of course, to his man-birth of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Originally conceived as Rhonda the immortal waitress, Buffy is a typically ditzy blonde who is too attention-deficited to be a high school scholar yet too offbeat and sweet to be an alpha bitch.

Undermined and underestimated by the world, this failed cheerleader saves it so many times she finds herself scrabbling for the plural form of apocalypse. Her secret, of course, is that she’s the chosen one: the one girl in all the world born with the strength and skill to hunt the vampires and, as she puts it, "stop the spread of their evil blah, blah, blah".

Buffy subverts many stereotypes, the first and most obvious being the one that says superheroes must have the geometric jaw lines (and secondary sexual characteristics) of Arnold Schwarzenegger. Wise-cracking, arse-kicking girl heroes are all the rage now, but back in 1997 when Buffy first started slaying they were revolutionary.

Also novel for world-savers at the time was Buffy’s silliness and self-doubt. In season one, her "watcher" (a mentor-chaperone for teen slayers) tells her that punishing herself over a mishap is pointless. "It’s entirely pointy," Buffy replies. "I was a moron."

Whimsical language play is another high point of the Whedon canon and has been almost as influential as its establishment of the undead as hot, romantic interests.

In season four, Buffy asks her friend Willow, "How do you get to be renowned? Do you have to be nowned first?" And Willow replies: "Yes, first there is the painful nowning process."

Subsequent examples of what has become known as Buffy Speak can be found in shows such as The West Wing ("What, you want to tempt the wrath of whatever from high atop the thing?") and Becker ("Quit hovering over me like . . . help me out, what hovers?"). Doctor Who also recently referred to a timey-wimey detector, explaining: "It goes ’ding’ when there’s stuff."

In addition to its humour, gender bendiness, verb play and embracing of inter-species embraces, other Buffy virtues worthy of an extollapalooza include its depth, complex morality, championing of underdogs and promotion of "found" family.

Anyway, as a long-time Whedon worshipper but first-time fan fest attendee, I confess that sitting in the presence of the great man in Sydney last Sunday was a somewhat unsettling experience.

The almighty looked decidedly small when he materialised in a puff of purple smoke and to the pounding rock of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer theme song; small and also kinda fatigued by the force of our fanatical affection. Clearly this is a risk when busy gods make themselves available to their obsessive publics (and no doubt the reason so many lay low and let their existing work speak for itself).

Whedon, bless him, endured our fierce, probing and at times quite inappropriate love with good grace and minimal swearing. But he did momentarily lose his cool when confronted about his rejection of the celluloid convention allowing the killing of only those characters rendered unsympathetic by evil or unsightliness.

Whedon’s body count includes popular cast members such as Tara the spunky sapphic witch from Buffy and Doyle the loveable part-Brachen demon from Angel. Even Buffy died a few times, once for quite a while.

But the lord of life and death would have none of our why-must-you-take-these-beautiful-young-lives-when-so-many-older-less-worthy-characters-are-allowed-to-live? lament. "What percentage of people actually die?" he said.

"What percentage of my people die? Do the math. I’m not the grim f . . king reaper, OK?"

He did, however, sound genuinely close to tears when asked about the premature demise of Firefly, his breathtakingly original space western featuring gaffed rockets and a crazy Chinese frontier patois.

"You never get over it," he said of its axing by unappreciative network execs. "It’s like losing a limb."

Fortunately, many of Whedon’s other legacies as saviour dude live on. Real-life high schools may not involve hell mouths, vengeance demons and giant mayor snakes. But they can still be a battle to survive.

"I have dreamt of this moment since I was 15," a shaky-voiced fan named Bella said via one of the audience microphones during question time. "I first watched Buffy when I was 10. It saved my life. It got me through high school. Thank you."

Whedon’s reply was that he’d always write about adolescent girls with superpowers because he wanted them to save his life, too.

It was an odd admission and one that spoke volumes about the immense power of his creations, not to mention the fact TV can be far more than — to quote Buffy again — bright colours, music and tiny little people.