Ten Questions for Joss Whedon 5.21.03

Ten Questions for Joss Whedon
5.21.03-

(thanks to )

As the seven-year run of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” comes to
a close, creator Joss Whedon shares his thoughts about
redemption, the soul and other frivolous matters.

Q. 1. What are your thoughts on the academic community’s
use of the show, from the humanities to the sciences, to
debate and analyze everything?

A. I think it’s great that the academic community has taken
an interest in the show. I think it’s always important for
academics to study popular culture, even if the thing they
are studying is idiotic. If it’s successful or made a dent
in culture, then it is worthy of study to find out why.

“Buffy,” on the other hand is, I hope, not idiotic. We
think very carefully about what we’re trying to say
emotionally, politically, and even philosophically while
we’re writing it. The process of breaking a story involves
the writers and myself, so a lot of different influences,
prejudices, and ideas get rolled up into it. So it really
is, apart from being a big pop culture phenom, something
that is deeply layered textually episode by episode. I do
believe that there is plenty to study and there are plenty
of things going on in it, as there are in me that I am
completely unaware of. People used to laugh that academics
would study Disney movies. There’s nothing more important
for academics to study, because they shape the minds of our
children possibly more than any single thing. So, like
that, I think “Buffy” should be analyzed, broken down, and
possibly banned.

Q. 2. Is there anything on any show you wanted to do, but
couldn’t, because the budget or network TV standards
wouldn’t allow it?

A. I’ve always fought the budget fight, but I found early
on the less money you have the more you have to fall back
on good story telling, so it’s never been a terrible
problem. We’ve never been able to have (with the exception
of John Ritter) any particularly notable guest stars. We’re
not one of those shows that’s such a big hit that everyone
wants to be on it, and we never had enough money to have
anyone really famous. Every now and then we sort of wished
we would, but we don’t really tell stories that way so that
wasn’t a big deal either.

The only thing that we’ve ever actually been stopped or
asked to stop doing was the fast food run. When Buffy
worked at the fast food joint it made the advertisers very
twitchy. So apparently the most controversial thing we ever
had on Buffy was a hamburger and chicken sandwich.

Q. 3. Are there any plot twists or character developments
(characters leaving the show, going from evil to good or
vice versa) that you look back on and wish you could alter,
somehow?

A. There aren’t a lot of twists that I wanted to throw out
there. After seven years you’ve pretty much used a bunch of
them up, and then you start twisting just to twist again
(like we did last summer). You’re not really telling mythic
stories, you’re just trying to surprise people and it sort
of becomes fake.

However, there are a couple of things I would’ve liked to
have seen a little more of; either Vampire or Hyena Xander,
because Nick pulls that off really well. And I wish we had
been able to service Dawn’s character a little bit more in
her third season. I really wanted to paint her with a lot
of different colors, but we got wrapped up in the big
slayer story and the whole arc of the season, so I think
she got a little bit gypped.

Q. 4. Buffy’s father and his absence are important
thematically in the first season. How did he go from being
a somewhat neglectful, newly-divorced father in Season One
to a total deadbeat? Did he fade out to clear the way for
Giles as a father figure? Did you ever consider taking the
Joyce/Giles pairing farther than it went?

A. It’s true that Buffy’s father started out as just a
divorced dad and then turned into this sort of “evil
pariah” figure of not even bothering to show up, and that
was simply because we had a father figure in Giles.

I’m very much more interested in the created family than I
am in actual families. And, you have to deal with that
character; how he’s dealing with his ex-wife’s death for
example. We have so many characters to service it made
things simpler to use the short hand of, “he’s just not
there”. And since we’re telling stories about family that
often hit on the traditional patriarchy as being kind of
lame-o, and the created family as being more lasting and
more loving, it just made sense.

But there was also the practical reality of having to hire
an actor and create a sub-plot that may not be as important
as what we wanted to see our regular actor, Tony Head,
going through, nothing against Dean [the actor who played
Buffy’s father]. We didn’t mean to make him such a bad guy,
but that’s just the reality of the thing.

And no, I never wanted Joyce and Giles to hook up
romantically, but I did think it would be pretty funny if
they had one night of drunken sex, of course the “Band
Candy” episode lent itself perfectly to that.

Q. 5. I would like to get a more in-depth, coherent
explanation of your concept of the soul. It seems to be the
crucial thing that separates good and evil in the
Buffyverse, yet at times it is treated like a commodity –
if you survive torture or know the right kind of magic you,
too, can get a soul. Is it one particular soul per
customer, as the white fog in the glass jar, identified as
“Angel’s soul” would indicate? Or is the soul merely the
conscience? Why was Spike able to be “good” even without a
soul?

A. I would love to give you a more in-depth coherent
explanation of my view of the soul, and if I had one I
would. The soul and my concept of it are as ephemeral as
anybody’s, and possibly more so. And in terms of the show,
it is something that exists to meet the needs of
convenience; the truth is sometimes you can trap it in a
jar; the truth is sometimes someone without one seems more
interesting than someone with one. I don’t think Clem has a
soul, but he’s certainly a sweet guy. Spike was definitely
kind of a soulful character before he had a soul, but we
made it clear that there was a level on which he could not
operate. Although Spike could feel love, it was the
possessive and selfish kind of love that most people feel.
The concept of real altruism didn’t exist for him. And
although he did love Buffy and was moved by her
emotionally, ultimately his desire to possess her led him
to try and rape her because he couldn’t make the connection

• the difference between their dominance games and actual
  rape.

With a soul comes a more adult understanding. That is
again, a little vague, but; can I say that I believe in the
soul? I don’t know that I can. It’s a beautiful concept, as
is resurrection and a lot of other things we have on the
show that I’m not really sure I can explain and I certainly
don’t believe in. It does fall prey to convenience, but at
the same time it has consistently marked the real
difference between somebody with a complex moral structure
and someone who may be affable and even likable, but
ultimately eats kittens.

Q. 6. We hear you’re fond of Shakespeare’s works - “Hamlet”
in particular. Could that have partly inspired the “Normal
Again” storyline that Buffy might be insane, since one
theory about “Hamlet” goes that the entire story is
actually taking place in Hamlet’s imagination? How
important is “Normal, Again” in the “Buffy” arc?

A. I have never been a subscriber to, “the entire play
takes place in Hamlet’s imagination” theory. In fact,
although I’m a devoted fan of “Hamlet” and it is the text I
know best in all the world, “Normal Again” did not come
from it.

How important it is in the scheme of the “Buffy” narrative
is really up to the person watching. If they decide that
the entire thing is all playing out in some crazy person’s
head, well the joke of the thing to us was it is, and that
crazy person is me. It was kind of the ultimate postmodern
look at the concept of a writer writing a show, which is
not the sort of thing we usually do on the show. The show
had merit in itself because it did raise the question, “How
can you live in this world and be sane?” But at the same
time the idea amused me very much and we played on it a
little bit, “How come her little sister is taller than
her?” “What was Adam’s plan?” We played on the crazy things
we came up with time and time again, to make this fantasy
show work and called them into question the way any normal
person would. But ultimately the entire series takes place
in the mind of a lunatic locked up somewhere in Los
Angeles, if that’s what the viewer wants. Personally, I
think it really happened.

Q. 7. Redemption has been an important theme of the show.
Is redemption the mode through which the characters become
less cliched, more inspiring and interesting? Is redemption
a theme that you have looked for in other texts from which
you have drawn inspiration?

A. Redemption has become one of the most important themes
in my work and it really did start with Angel. I would say
probably with the episode “Amends,” but even with the
character itself and the concept of the spin-off was about
redemption. It was about addiction and how you get through
that and come out the other side, how you redeem yourself
from a terrible life. I do actually work with a number of
reformed addicts, if that’s what you call them. I call them
drunks. But my point is a good number of people that are
most close to me creatively have lived that life, and it
informs their work. I never have, and so I’m not sure why
it is that redemption is so fascinating to me. I think the
mistakes I’ve made in my own life have plagued me, but
they’re pretty boring mistakes: I committed a series of
grisly murders in the eighties and I think I once owned a
Wilson-Phillips Album. Apart from that I’m pretty much an
average guy, yet I have an enormous burden of guilt. I’m
not sure why. I’m a WASP, so it’s not Jewish or Catholic
guilt; it’s just there. Ultimately, the concept of somebody
who needed to be redeemed is more interesting to me. I
think it does make a character more textured than one who
doesn’t.

I can’t think of anything, off hand, that I am a big fan of
that contains that kind of thing. My favorite fictions are
usually the kind I make, which is sort of adolescent rites
of passage, which is what “Buffy” is about. It&Mac226;s about the
getting of strength and that’s probably the most important
theme in any of my work, but I would say coming a close
second is the theme of redemption. I think as you make your
way through life it’s hard to maintain a moral structure,
and that difficulty and the process of coming out the other
side of a dark, even psychological time is to me the most
important part of adulthood.

I think to an extent every human being needs to be redeemed
somewhat or at least needs to look at themselves and say,
“I’ve made mistakes, I’m off course, I need to change.”
Which is probably the hardest thing for a human being to do
and maybe that’s why it interests me so.

Q. 8. “Firefly” was the first time in a while when your
ideas did not get to make it through to fruition. First of
all, is there anything you would like to share with people
following the show on the edge of their seats? And
secondly, having seen how you turned a previous
disappointment, “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” the movie, into
an artistic success on your own terms, can we hope for
something similar with “Firefly”?

A. “Firefly.” I’ll answer the second question first. I have
every hope in the world of bringing “Firefly” back to
people in another format. I haven’t got anything definite
yet but I’ve been fighting to do that since the day we were
cancelled. I therefore don’t have any particular plot
things I want to share with people because I’m hoping I’ll
get the chance to do that in the near future, whether it be
on TV, film or a t-shirt.

It was a bizarre blow to have a story in your head and
suddenly not get to tell it. I don’t know why, I’ve written
movies long enough to know that that’s usually the case,
but after “Buffy” and “Angel” sort of took off I got lulled
into overconfidence and was so excited to tell the stories
of these people, and then suddenly had it truncated.
However, knowing that what we shot will be coming out on
DVD in its full form is a big vindication, because I got to
say a lot of things that I wanted to say right, up in the
first episodes. So, as I said, watch and wait.

Q. 9. Have you always known how “Buffy” would end? I ask
this more in terms of Buffy’s character than the show’s
plot. Meaning - have you always known where you wanted to
take the character psychologically? And if so, where is
that?

A. It would have been impossible for me to predict where
Buffy’s character would go by the end of the series because
the character is informed by so many things. You have to
find out what people respond to, you have to find out what
works on the show, what aspects make sense, what your
meaning is. After seven years your mission statement may
have changed. Ours remained pretty much the same, or rather
came full circle. We looked at the idea of power; the girl
who had power that nobody understood, living in high school
and how hard that was. We came back to that girl and that
concept very strongly in the seventh season on purpose
because we knew it was our last.

In terms of the character, though, you can’t say - a lot
of it has to do with the actor. If you are working with an
actor, and reading them at all, and are making a show in
which people change and don’t just solve a crime every
week, inevitably that actor informs that character. It
happened very quickly with Willow becoming goofier and
sexier, because that’s the way Alyson was. Giles’ character
became hipper because Tony was not a stuffy guy. Sarah’s
became more thoughtful and intelligent. Buffy also became a
little bit closed off from the other characters, in the
same way that a star is kind of separated from an ensemble,
so we dealt with the idea of the isolation of the Slayer,
of the person who has to lead.

Some of that of course comes also from me - because at the
end of the day I don’t know how I’m going to evolve - and
as much as the actor, the writer is the character. For
seven years I’ve been Buffy. Some people do plot in
advance, but because my show is really about just growing
up and changing and growing, if you try and predict that
too heavily you stunt it, you don’t feel a natural flow and
the stories start to feel forced.

Q. 10. If you were to continue with the same cast of Buffy
for another year, where would you like to go with it?

A. Honestly, if I had a strong answer for that question
there probably would be another season. I think it’s time
they all went their separate ways. And so my answer is, I
can’t possibly think of anything, I’m simply too tired.
That’s the end, thanks very much.