Faith And Choice In The Works Of Joss Whedon

Joss Whedon once identified himself as an "angry, hard-line atheist" who is nevertheless "fascinated by the concept of devotion." While organized religion seems to hold no satisfactory answers for Whedon, his dedication to exploring the meanings of faith and belief can be seen in many of the characters he has created for such works as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly, Serenity, and Fray. This work examines a variety of Whedon's characters and discusses what can be learned from their struggles and discoveries regarding religion and belief. Part One focuses on the characters' search for purpose, revealing how Dawn, Spike, and Angel attempt to define the meaning of their lives in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its spin-off, Angel. Part Two focuses on family, examining the unconventional family dynamic in Whedon's comic book miniseries Fray and television series Firefly. Part Three centers around the concept of redemption, using Angel's Doyle, Firefly's Malcolm Reynolds and Shepherd Book, and Buffy's Faith Lehane to examine the characters' search for salvation and their own acceptance of their past actions. Finally, Part Four focuses on the harmful potential of religious zealotry, revealing the negative aspects of absolute belief through Firefly's River and Buffy's Caleb. A primary source guide follows the main text, providing the writer, director, and air date of each television episode, along with publication data for Whedon's print works, including the in-publication "Season 8" comic books for Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

This is a collection of new essays on the religious themes in, and the implications of, the works of Joss Whedon, creator of such shows as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Firefly, and more recently writer and director of the box-office hit Marvel's The Avengers. The book addresses such topics as ethics, racism, feminism, politics, witchcraft, spiritual transformation, identity, community, heroism, apocalypse, and other theologically significant themes of Whedon's creative enterprises. The disciplinary approaches vary as well; history, theology, philosophy of religion, phenomenology, cultural studies, and religious studies are all employed. The various essay authors differ in that some are clearly believers in God, some are clearly not, and others leave that matter aside.

Director, producer and screenwriter Joss Whedon is a creative force in film, television, comic books and a host of other media. This book provides an authoritative survey of all of Whedon's work, ranging from his earliest scriptwriting on Roseanne, through his many movie and TV undertakings--Toy Story, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly/Serenity, Dr. Horrible, The Cabin in the Woods, and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.--to his forays into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The book covers both the original texts of the Whedonverse and the many secondary works focusing on Whedon's projects, including about 2000 books, essays, articles, documentaries and dissertations.

Joss Whedon's works, across all media including television, film, musicals, and comic books, are known for their commitment to gender and sexual equality. They have always encouraged their audiences to love whomever, and however, they wish. This book is a history of the sexualities represented in the works of Joss Whedon and it covers all of Whedon's genres, including fantasy, horror, science fiction, westerns, superhero stories, and Shakespearean comedy. Unique for its consideration of the entire arc of Whedon's two-decade career, from the beginning of Buffy the Vampire Slayer's first season in 1997 through the conclusion of its twelfth (comic book) season in 2018, this book examines in detail both better-known queer sexualities of the LGBTQ+ spectrum, and lesser-known non-normative sexualities. The book includes chapters on Whedon's sexually dominant women and submissive men, sexual pluralism on Firefly, disabled sexualities in Whedon's superhero narratives, zoophilia in Buffy, queer and heteronormative sexualities in Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, the subversion of the sexual tropes of slasher films in The Cabin in Woods, and dominance and submission in Whedon's Much Ado About Nothing.

This bibliographic guide covers the “Buffyverse”—the fictional worlds of the acclaimed television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997–2003) and its spinoff Angel (1999–2004), as well as the original Buffy feature film of 1992. It is the largest and most inclusive work of its kind. The author organizes and describes both the original texts of the Buffyverse (episodes, DVDs, novels, comic books, games, and more) and the secondary materials created about the shows, including books, essays, articles, documentaries, dissertations, fan production and websites. This vast and diverse collection of information about these two seminal shows and their feature-film forebear provides an accessible, authoritative and comprehensive survey of the subject.

In Organizational Approaches to the Works of Joss Whedon, Andrew F. Herrmann offers an in-depth analysis of the connections between communication, organization, gender, discourse, and ethics in the works of Joss Whedon. Herrmann examines how characters go to work in organizations, how characters fight against organizations, and how some organizations themselves are characters. Whedon’s works offer both popular and scholarly appeal, often including portrayals of organizations, such as The Union of Allied Planets in Firefly and Serenity and S.H.I.E.L.D. in The Avengers and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Herrmann argues that by looking at how Whedon portrays these organizations—including the ways in which employees are impacted by their organizations and how decision-making is affected by gender, masculinity, and economic discourses—we can gain fresh insights into our own working lives. Scholars of film studies, organizational communication, gender, rhetoric, and ethics will find this book particularly useful.

In an age when geek chic has come to define mainstream pop culture, few writers and producers inspire more admiration and response than Joss Whedon. From Buffy the Vampire Slayer to Much Ado About Nothing, from Dr. Horrible’s Sing–Along Blog to The Avengers, the works of Whedon have been the focus of increasing academic attention. This collection of articles represents some of the best work covering a wide array of topics that clarify Whedon’s importance, including considerations of narrative and visual techniques, myth construction, symbolism, gender, heroism, and the business side of television. The editors argue that Whedon’s work is of both social and aesthetic significance; that he creates “canonical television.” He is a master of his artistic medium and has managed this success on broadcast networks rather than on cable. From the focus on a single episode to the exploration of an entire season, from the discussion of a particular narrative technique to a recounting of the history of Whedon studies, this collection will both entertain and educate those exploring Whedon scholarship for the first time and those planning to teach a course on his works.

In this book, Dean Kowalski argues that filmmakers can “do” philosophy when creating a fictional narrative film, and utilizes a careful and extensive analysis of Joss Whedon’s fictive creations—Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly, Dollhouse, and The Cabin in the Woods (among others)—to establish this thesis. This book appeals to many different readers. For the many admirers of Whedon’s fictive creations, it offers one of the most comprehensive analyses of his corpus. It reprises many examples and dialogue passages from the far corners of the so-called “Whedonverse.” You’ll get a chance to re-experience your favorite dramatic moments, and think about them in novel ways. For popular culture scholars, it offers illustrations of various philosophical theories, explains how those theories pertain to relevant data points in Whedon’s oeuvre, and assesses whether, or to what extent, they have real-world application. For philosophers of film, it explicates crucial issues germane to the film-as-philosophy debate, but also expands them to television—all in the attempt to demonstrate why it is that Whedon ought to be included among those rare filmmakers who engage the philosophical process via their artistry.