Father of

Buffy

Studies

Father of Buffy Studies

The Slayage Conferences: 2004: Nashville (MTSU) 2006: Barnesville, GA (Gordon College) 2008: Arkadelphia, AR (Henderson State University) 2010: Saint Augustine, FL (Flagler College) 2012: Vancouver, BC (University of British Columbia)

Father of

Buffy

Studies

Father of

Buffy

Studies

Father of

Buffy

Studies

Over thirty books, 300+ scholarly/critical articles, eleven conferences

Acknowledgements Nancy Holder, Preface Prologue—Michael Bay vs. Joss Whedon, Weapons to be Determined Introduction—From the Mind of Joss Whedon

Part I. Apprentice

1—Television Son 2—Fan Boy 3—Film Studies Major 4—Television Writer 5—Buffy Goes to the Movies 6—Script Doctor/Screenwriter

Part II. Creator

7—Buffy Does Television 8—Creator of Angel and Firefly 9—Creator of Serenity 10—Dollhouse 11—Joss Whedon, Television Auteur 12—Not Making Wonder Woman 13—Working Outside the System 14—Networks of Enterprise 15—The Avengers

Epilogue

"You think you know, what you are, what’s to come. You haven’t even begun." Appendices: The School of Whedon, A Joss Whedon Timeline, Glossary

Essay by Whedon in MSCL DVD box set.

“[W]e are left with the most crushing cliffhanger in history [on

My So Called Life

, with Angela going off on her date with Jordan Catalano having just discovered that it was actually Brian Krakow

(or, as I affectionately call him, ‘me’)

who wrote her those love letters.” (Joss Whedon, “Reality TV”; my emphasis)

Brian Krakow (Devon Gummersall)

)

or, as I affectionately call him, “me”

Joss Whedon (1964- ) in a cameo appearance on Veronica Mars

J. J. Abrams, Joss (at ComicCon)

“3GTV”: The Whedon Family Business —Writing for TV

Wesleyan University, Middleton, Connecticut

Wesleyan

Whedon and His Mentor, Jeanine Basinger

Wesleyan

Jeanine Basinger

Wesleyan

Richard Slotkin

Wesleyan

Whedon vs. Bay

Joss Whedon’s Classmate, Michael Bay

“I often joke that my tombstone will read `She taught Michael Bay,' '' Basinger says, laughing. ``But I don't think Michael Bay is the devil. I think he's a good filmmaker. He was an award-winning photographer as a high school student, a fully defined visual artist as a kid, and I don't think he approached the medium with the idea of pleasing other people necessarily.”

Basinger on Bay

Basinger on Bay

“Ingmar Bergman said, `Every great filmmaker has to define film on his own terms,' and in a sense, that's right. For some people, it's about long takes or performances or social messages. For Michael, it's about pace and rapid movement. Michael is actually an abstract artist in the way he uses time, space, light and color. He's almost an experimental filmmaker in that regard. He uses the medium in the fastest, sharpest way that it can be used, and if you don't like it, tough luck.''

Astronaut and Caveman:

Michael Bay vs. Joss Whedon, Weapons to be Determined

“A Hole in the World” (

Angel

5.15)

SPIKE: It's bollocks, Angel! It's your brand of bollocks from the first to last. ANGEL: No, you can't ever see the big picture. You can't see any picture! SPIKE: I am talking about something primal. Right? Savagery. Brutal animal instinct. ANGEL: And that wins out every time with you. You know, the human race has evolved, Spike! SPIKE: Oh, into a bunch of namby-pamby, self-analyzing wankers who could never hope to — ANGEL: We're bigger. We're smarter. Plus, there's a thing called teamwork, not to mention the superstitious terror of your pure aggressors! SPIKE: You just want it to be the way you want it to be. ANGEL: (yelling) It's not about what I want! WESLEY: (arriving) Sorry. Is this something we should all be discussing? ANGEL: (embarrassed) No. WESLEY: It just...sounds a little serious. ANGEL: It was mostly...theoretical. We...

SPIKE: We were just working out a b — Look

, if cavemen and astronauts got into a fight, who would win?

(he crosses his arms and looks expectantly at Wes) WESLEY: Ah. You've been yelling at each other for 40 minutes about this? (they both look embarassed. Wesley considers...) WESLEY: Do the astronauts have weapons? ANGEL & SPIKE: (simultaneously) No.

“A Hole in the World” (

Angel

5.15)

Joss Whedon, born 1964

Michael Bay, born 1965

Michael Bay

John Frankenheimer, young and old (1930 2002)

Bay Does Music Videos

Bay Does Commercials

''Michael's interests line up perfectly with what the American public wants. I think a lot of directors would be like that if they could put away their artistic guilt.'’ --Tom Gorai, a producer and Bay collaborator

“[I]n last year's

Team America: World Police

, South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone had one of their marionettes sing the line ''I miss you/More than Michael Bay missed the mark when he made

Pearl Harbor

'' and everyone in the theater got the joke.”

--Rene Rodriguez,

Miami Herald

“[M]aking movies by applause meter and then turning them into two-hour commercials for testosterone doesn't exactly improve Hollywood's image as a culture-clotting, intelligence- sapping behemoth. And the critics have not been generous. Bad Boys, The New York Times said, was ''stitched together, like some cinematic Frankenstein's monster, from the body parts of other movies.'' And the Los Angeles Times said The Rock ''epitomizes trends in Hollywood filmmaking that have made many people very rich while impoverishing audiences around the world.--David Hochman, “Is

Michael Bay the Devil?”

“It makes perfect sense that Michael Bay would own a dog like Mason. The colossal English mastiff, easily 200 pounds, galumphs around the 34-year-old filmmaker's Brentwood bachelor pad with all the reserve of a Clydesdale on Viagra. Everything about Mason is gigantic: his branch of a tail, his Pavarotti esque woof, his Jacuzzi-size doggy dish. There is no escaping it: This dog is bigger than your dog. This is the biggest dog in Los Angeles. Let's get real, this is the biggest dog on the planet!”

- David Hochman, “Is Michael Bay the Devil?”

[Bay] has his collar up. The collar on his light-tan jacket. You find yourself wishing he didn't have his collar up. . . . But soon you are past the collar-up thing. Because now you're wishing he didn't park in the handicapped spot. Oh, you wish he didn't just pull up here to the production office and, without so much as a blip of hesitation, pull his car into the handicapped spot. But he did. And there's nothing you can do. There really is no defense you can give to a healthy thirty-seven year-old man parking his $200,000 Ferrari in a handicapped spot. And why do you wish he wasn't this way? Because you are a generous human being with a regular heart and you like your main character to be sympathetic? Maybe.--

Jeanne Marie Laskas, “Bay” (Esquire 2001)

Goodspeed: I’ll do my best.

Mason: Your best? Losers always whine about their best. Winners go home and f*&k the prom queen.

--from Michael Bay's The

Rock

Bay & Latest Supermodel Kai & Joss

Goodspeed: I’ll do my best.

Mason: Your best? Losers always whine about their best. Winners go home and f*&k the prom queen.- from Michael Bay's The

Rock

[Buffy is] “a show by losers for losers”

(quoted at http://www.crosswinds.n

et/~tlbin/cast/joss.html

).

“I hear he has a very large penis.”—Barry Sonnenfeld on Michael Bay’s film style

“They castrate me.”—Michael Bay on the critics

“Michael Bay's career . . . is some sort of reverse triumph, the whomping emergence of illiterate filmmaking. By that I don't mean that the film is made for illiterates, but that his movies are put together seemingly without any grasp of how to construct a story or even a scene. . . . --Charles Taylor in

Salon

Watch clips from Bay’s The Island and Whedon’s “Serenity”

Whedon vs. Bay

Bay Grosses

Bay Movie

Bad Boys The Rock Armageddon Pearl Harbor

Bad Boys II

The Island Transformers Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen Transformers: Dark of the Moon

Total

US Gross $65,807,024 $134,006,721 $201,573,391 $198,539,855 $46,522,560 $35,799,026 $317,601,309 $200,000,000 $352,358,779 $1,552,208,665 World Gross $148,800,000 $330,500,000 $554,600,000 $450,400,000 $261,900,000 $160,299,000 $701,014,499 $836,297,228 $1,123,746,996 $4,567,557,723

BB: Before Buffy

BB: Before Buffy

BB: Before Buffy

BB: Before Buffy

BB: Before Buffy

Comics Interlude

Comics Interlude

Whedon: Oh yes... I was going to be a brilliant, independent filmmaker who then went on to make giant, major box office summer movies. IGN-Film Force: So, Spielberg...

Whedon: Spielberg by way of George Romero or Wes Anderson, or a strange combination of the two ...

IGN-Film Force: Commercial success with artistic integrity intact...

Whedon: Exactly!

—Joss Whedon (IGN-Film Force Interview)

Cabin Website

2012

Avengers

Website

2012

2012

Joss Whedon’s Legacy

“It's about the show, and I feel the same way about it. I get the same way. It's not like being a rock star. It doesn't feel like they're reacting to me. It's really sweet when people react like that, and I love the praise, but to me, what they're getting emotional about is the show. And that's the best feeling in the world. There's nothing creepy about it. I feel like there's a religion in narrative, and I feel the same way they do. I feel like we're both paying homage to something else; they're not paying homage to me.”--Joss Whedon, Onion AV Club Interview (2001; my italics)

“

I am the fan that gets to have the most fun. I get to walk the set every day. I totally get to be there when the story's broken. I get to do all of the fun bits. Every day is fan day for me. That's who I am. I'm the fan that got the closest.” --Joss Whedon

“ I've had more luck than any 10 guys I know. I've been able to tell my story more than a few times, and that's the greatest gift. If I'm never given that gift again, I still will have had it, and I'm grateful for that. My gratitude has finally exceeded my rage by a good, long margin, and when I wake up in the morning with my work and my family, gratitude is the thing that guides me, not rage.” --Joss Whedon

Amor fati: “Love your fate”- Nietzsche

Whedon Movie Grosses (Written/Doctored/Directed) Film Budget Worldwide Gross

Buffy the Vampire Slayer Speed Toy Story Waterworld Twister Alien Resurrection X-Men Titan AE Serenity The Cabin in the Woods The Avengers

Total $16,000,000 $28,000,000 $30,000,000 $175,000,000 $92,000,000 $70,000,000 $75,000,000 $75,000,000 $40,000,000 $30,000,000 $220,000,000 $16,624,456 $350,448,145 $354,300,000 $255,200,000 $494,471,524 $161,295,658 $295,999,717 $36,755,000 $38,849,097 NA NA $851,000,000 $2,003,943,597