What goes around comes around is a lesson Joss Whedon must have learned writing and directing his blockbuster movies and TV shows including The Avengers and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
But now Whedon, who has prided himself on being one of Hollywood’s most virulent liberals and wannabe male feminist allies, is suffering a huge backlash after his original script for Wonder Woman was leaked online.
Whedon was hired to make a movie version of Wonder Woman in 2005 starring Angelina Jolie. But that never got out of development hell, and he didn’t have anything to do with Patti Jenkins’ current movie blockbuster starring Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman, which is going gangbusters at the box office.
Whedon’s original take on Diana Prince, however, isn’t going down well with his feminist friends. For a start, they are objecting to his descriptions of Wonder Woman: “To say she is beautiful is almost to miss the point…her body is curvaceous, but taut as a drawn bow.”
Whedon also has taken flak for having Wonder Woman being called a “whore,” a “bitch” and a “feisty little filly.” Then there’s the fact her story is told from Steve Trevor’s point of view-rather than the Wonder Woman-centered take in the finished movie. And Diana does un-feminist-friendly things like fight with her mother.
The backlash has been fierce:
Thanking the entire universe for not allowing the sexist & terrible Joss Whedon Wonder Woman to ever get made. pic.twitter.com/xZrBsjmVY4
— ✨libby ✨ (@ladylibberty) June 15, 2017
the first pronoun in Joss Whedon’s Wonder Woman script is “she” so i got excited that maybe it WOULD be about a woman, but its about a plane pic.twitter.com/eZRx4VlZGL
— Rave Sashayed (@_sashayed) June 15, 2017
It remains to be seen how lasting the controversy will be. Whedon, who built up his feminist credentials creating Buffy the Vampire Slayer, is supposed to be writing and directing the new Batgirl movie.
Whedon’s last Tweet was fantasizing about President Trump in prison, but he has been uncharacteristically silent on social media about the leak of his script.
For the record he wrote recently that Wonder Woman was a “goddamn delight.” But nobody cares about that.
