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Kai Cole, Joss Whedon's Ex-Wife, calls him out as a 'Hypocrite Preaching Feminism'

andymcc

Banned
What doed cheating have to do with feminism?

Honest question, it seems unrelated to me.

It's not the cheating that sticks out as much as he sounds like he took advantage of and preened young, likely impressionable fans and actresses.
 
Cheating on your partner has nothing to do with feminism.

Yeah I get that intellectually, I was more talking about the perception of the situation I suppose. Anyone would look bad with these accusations leveled against them, but if you've built part of your professional identity on being a prominent male feminist then it gives the appearance of being incredibly disingenuous.
 

Pau

Member
Being a horny serial cheater isn't really unfeminist, the whole "denied me the right to make decisions about my body based on the truth" line seems like an attempt to make a larger issue of an essentially personal problem.
It is a larger issue though. She doesn't know if he used protection, and even then he still has a chance of passing an STD.
 

Faynwulf

Member
So why does everyone just believe his without questioning it?

Knowing very little about this aside from some rumors here and there, this sounds more like a angry ex-wife that tries to ruin the reputation of her ex-husband. Sure she is allowed to be angry if all that is really true. But taking stuff like this to the public always carries some kind of "stink".
 

Bookoo

Member
Well, in this case he cited his feminism to feed some bullshit to his wife about cheating.

Unless I missed it the line was said at the beginning of filming not after it occurred.

It's like if SO became jealous of some person you work with and you try to brush it off like "Nothing will ever happen, we are just friends".....welp. So I sort of agree with others here that I don't see how it relates to feminism at all.
 

Karkador

Banned
Cheating on your partner has nothing to do with feminism.

You could say this in a vacuum, I guess, but the fact is that he was a man in power in a male dominated field, having affairs with women on the project he's leading. And he somehow felt like he could get away with it, and the wife at home didn't need to know?

Also notice how he described the problem as being that he's too good and the women are the flawed and 'needy', 'aggressive' ones.
 

Pau

Member
And yet it still has nothing to do with feminism.
You have a very limited definition of feminism if you think it doesn't include women (and everyone really) having the right to make informed decisions about their bodies in sexual situations.
 
It is a larger issue though. She doesn't know if he used protection, and even then he still has a chance of passing an STD.

The same is true of cheating regardless of gender, though. That's a public health issue, but it's not a feminist issue, unless you think feminism encompasses literally the entirety of the concepts of consent and bodily autonomy.
 

diunxx

Member
Are you guys really shocked that a big hollywood player cheated on his wife? that pretty much comes with the territory.
 
You could say this in a vacuum, I guess, but the fact is that he was a man in power in a male dominated field, having affairs with women on the project he's leading. And he somehow felt like he could get away with it, and the wife at home didn't need to know?

Also notice how he described the problem as being that he's too good and the women are the flawed and 'needy', 'aggressive' ones.

And? LOL

All I can pull from that is Joss was not faithful to his wife.
 

Grizzlyjin

Supersonic, idiotic, disconnecting, not respecting, who would really ever wanna go and top that
The show Girlfriend's Guide to Divorce has a cheating director husband character who is having an affair with a 20 year old actress, who is the star of a CW show about vampire hunting. I always suspected it was some low-key tea spillage because the showrunner of Girlfriend's Guide is Marti Nixon who...*drumroll* was a producer on Buffy. I just never imagined it might be about Joss. But who knows.

Big fan of Whedon, I'd hate to find out he's been doing some dirt.
 
It's not the cheating that sticks out as much as he sounds like he took advantage of and preened young, likely impressionable fans and actresses.

Honestly question, if someone wants to sleep with you because you are famous/talented or they think it will help them advance their career, are you to blame for doing it? Whedon isn't exactly Mick Jagger but I don't doubt he legitimately had people interested in him just for being himself or for being in charge of so many projects, no "grooming" required.

Like, telling an actress they have to sleep with you or they won't get a part is one thing, but what if it's initiated by the "less powerful" party? Is it the more powerful's responsibility to deny regardless of circumstance because of the dynamic?
 
You have a very limited definition of feminism if you think it doesn't include women (and everyone really) having the right to make informed decisions about their bodies in sexual situations.

STOP.

So what does it mean when a woman cheats on her man? Is she now against feminism or some other ism I'm not aware of that she violated?
 

entremet

Member
wow nerdy dude gets power and money, and turns into a scumbag, i am so surprised!
Just like sports stars and politicians, no?

Joss should’ve been honest and separated from his wife if he wanted to play the field with consensual relationships. But I don’t think temperament has anything to do with it.
 

DeathyBoy

Banned
So why does everyone just believe his without questioning it?

Knowing very little about this aside from some rumors here and there, this sounds more like a angry ex-wife that tries to ruin the reputation of her ex-husband. Sure she is allowed to be angry if all that is really true. But taking stuff like this to the public always carries some kind of "stink".

I can believe it.

The business with Charisma was always sketchy as Hell. There was always something off about how he talked about Hannigan and Acker. And his work has... problematic tendencies at points.
 

Pizoxuat

Junior Member
The same is true of cheating regardless of gender, though. That's a public health issue, but it's not a feminist issue, unless you think feminism encompasses literally the entirety of the concepts of consent and bodily autonomy.

You cannot be a decent feminist if you don't treat consent and bodily autonomy as sacrosanct. Yes, this means there are bad feminists out there, but I've been calling Joss a bad feminist based on his writing for years.
 
You could say this in a vacuum, I guess, but the fact is that he was a man in power in a male dominated field, having affairs with women on the project he's leading. And he somehow felt like he could get away with it, and the wife at home didn't need to know?

Also notice how he described the problem as being that he's too good and the women are the flawed and 'needy', 'aggressive' ones.
That's one way of looking at it. Or it could be that Whedon being a trendy guy at the time was surrounded by actresses that saw an opportunity and pursued it to the point of looking aggressive and/or needy. This isn't a comdemnation of all women, or even all the women Whedon interacted with, it was just something he encountered a lot.
That's just how I read it. Bad diction, sure, but this again is coming from an ex-wife so...
 
Honestly question, if someone wants to sleep with you because you are famous/talented or they think it will help them advance their career, are you to blame for doing it? Whedon isn't exactly Mick Jagger but I don't doubt he legitimately had people interested in him just for being himself or for being in charge of so many projects, no "grooming" required.

Like, telling an actress they have to sleep with you or they won't get a part is one thing, but what if it's initiated by the "less powerful" party? Is it the more powerful's responsibility to deny regardless of circumstance because of the dynamic?

Yes? The propositioned party is still at liberty to deny sexual advances.
 

Pau

Member
STOP.

So what does it mean when a woman cheats on her man? Is she now against feminism or some other ism I'm not aware of that she violated?
Stop? Seriously? Yes, if a woman cheats on her man and knowingly exposes him to an STD in doing so yeah, if say she's being a terrible feminist in this case.
 

jstripes

Banned
Ya, in the last few years I've started to think Whedon is kinda full of hot air on certain subjects. This isn't that surprising.
 
What doed cheating have to do with feminism?

Honest question, it seems unrelated to me.

I think it's more to do with him abusing the Hollywood power structure "all of a sudden I'm a hot shot producer" as leverage to bang women that are "aggressive" in their careers?

The greek mythos thing suggests barely legal.
 
If true, yeah, scumbag thing to do.

IMO, Joss hasn't really been a fantastic feminist writer. Difference between him and most others in the industry, is that he's open about proclaiming to be one, which makes people overanalyze and overestimate his content.

FFS, Kevin Smith is in a lot of ways a better writer when it comes to portraying good female characters, but he doesn't talk about it so no one cares.

But with that said, IMO cheating on your wife doesn't make you less of a feminist. Still not a good feminist writer, but overall he's the same dude.
 

Goodstyle

Member
The show Girlfriend's Guide to Divorce has a cheating director husband character who is having an affair with a 20 year old actress, who is the star of a CW show about vampire hunting. I always suspected it was some low-key tea spillage because the showrunner of Girlfriend's Guide is Marti Nixon who...*drumroll* was a producer on Buffy. I just never imagined it might be about Joss. But who knows.

Big fan of Whedon, I'd hate to find out he's been doing some dirt.

......

1408.gif
 
Honestly question, if someone wants to sleep with you because you are famous/talented or they think it will help them advance their career, are you to blame for doing it? Whedon isn't exactly Mick Jagger but I don't doubt he legitimately had people interested in him just for being himself or for being in charge of so many projects, no "grooming" required.

Like, telling an actress they have to sleep with you or they won't get a part is one thing, but what if it's initiated by the "less powerful" party? Is it the more powerful's responsibility to deny regardless of circumstance because of the dynamic?

It's totally your responsibility. If they're associated with a project you have power over, then you should try and be professional about it. You at least have to take ownership of the fact it'll look sleazy. This all aside to the fact he was cheating on his wife.

I know that, but are you suggesting that Whedon (or any famous person) should turn down ANY advances from anyone who works in the same field or claims to be a fan?

Maybe not but if they're running around his set maybe he shouldn't be thinking about his dick first and foremost.
 

ZeroX03

Banned
Cheating is a pretty terrible thing to do, but I don't know how much it really affects his feminist cred. Makes him a bad husband, not a bad feminist.
 

TAJ

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
Ex-wives aren't usually the best character references.

Especially when they're freshly ex.
Also, Marti Noxon ruined Buffy pretty much single-handedly.
 
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