February 14th, 2011
Joss Whedon has just wrapped up the final issue of his comic book Buffy series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 8. It’s been an uneven run, with some brilliant stuff in the beginning, some bad choices and confusing plotting toward the end, and vigorous writing throughout. On the whole, not as tip-top as his Astonishing X-Men run (which might be the best thing he’s ever written), but still entertaining and engaging. Facing the final page of the issue is a little note from Whedon, in which he says the following:
The biggest challenge in Season 8 was that many years ago I wrote a Slayer comic and set it in the far future so that it could never affect Buffy’s life. I was so young. But the challenge of reconciling the optimistic, empowering message of the final episode with the dystopian, Slayerless vision of Fray’s future gave Season 8 a genuine weight. There is never progress without hateful, reactionary blowback. That’s never been more apparent than in today’s political scene in America.
There’s “hateful and reactionary blowback” in America today to President Obama’s “progress”? Are you kidding? If anything, the level of personal, as opposed to ideological, animus toward Obama is much less hateful than it’s been in at least 20 years. Consider the meanest, angriest Tea Partiers we’ve seen over the last two years and think about how they stack up to the “Bush = Hitler” crowd; or the folks who thought Clinton was running drugs out of the Mena airstrip and having aides murdered. If anything, the opposite is true: Obama’s personal approval ratings run far ahead of his job approval ratings. People tend to dislike what he’s doing to America, but they like him just the same.
But the most ridiculous part of this little jab at anyone who dares object to Barack Obama’s administration is the claim that hateful reactionary blowback has never been more apparent than in today’s politics. Never ever? Not after the Emancipation Proclamation? Not with the Civil War? Not during Reconstruction?
It’s always been clear that Whedon has the same politics as people like Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg, and that’s just fine. But now it’s clear that he has the same political sophistication. And that’s kind of embarrassing.
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“But, but you don’t understand…Bush was Hitler. So, you see, it was not reactionary at all.” – Babs
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Whedon had Buffy pose with a hammer and sickle while overthrowing the evil homeless teen exploiting, pseudo-religious monsters of Dimension X. Not exactly “sophisticated” commentary.
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Dr. J. February 15, 2011 at 12:10 am
He did go to Wesleyian…