Abstract
This chapter positions Joss Whedon via the concept of the “Minor Writer,” as developed by poststructuralist philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. In these terms, “minor” is not simply defined as a literature written from the perspective of an oppressed group, nor a secondary or neglected writing; instead, minor writing takes the language of the dominant culture and warps it to new purposes, thus creating “lines of flight” in terms of creative new trajectories that depart from dominant identities, inventing new forms of collective life, consciousness and affectivity. Such a reading, demonstrated via specific examples drawn from Whedonverse texts, facilitates the interrogation of issues pertaining to politics, fandom, transmedia, feminism and social activism, as well the negotiation of problematic issues concerning Whedon’s status as a cult auteur despite his recent absorption into the Hollywood mainstream.
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Notes
- 1.
David Lavery and Cynthia Burkhead, Joss Whedon: Conversations (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2011), viii.
- 2.
Whedon’s style and following has very much helped establish The Avengers’ cinematic brand and hence has inherently influenced the commercial juggernaut that is the wider Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). For a consideration as to the significance of Whedon’s authorship in the wider sphere of the MCU, see Leora Hadas, “Authorship Assembled: Joss Whedon as Promotional Auteur in Marvel’s The Avengers ,” in The Comics of Joss Whedon (Jefferson: McFarland, 2015), 199–208.
- 3.
Matt Hills, “Mainstream Cult,” The Cult TV Book (London: I.B. Tauris, 2010), 68–68.
- 4.
It is not the purpose of this article to engage in specific debates pertaining to the definition of cult and/or auteur theory. Suffice to say, auteur theory, in its varied forms, offers a framework for the analysis of any complex artistic creation, not just film, and the study of cult television and convergence cultures can help bring some of its more outdated aspects into the twenty-first century. Indeed, the study of cult film and television has opened up many productive avenues for the discussion of fan practices, cinematic taste economies, and historical reception contexts, and has much to tell us about the politics of cultural consumption and its relation to issues of economic and educational capital . See Mark Jancovich, “Cult Fictions: Cult Movies, Subcultural Capital and the Production of Cultural Distinctions,” Cultural Studies 16, no. 2 (November 2010): 306–322.
- 5.
Mary Ellen Iatropoulos, “‘Of Whedonverse Canon and ‘Someone Else’s Sandbox’: Marvel, Much Ado and the Great Auteur Debate,” in After the Avengers: From Joss Whedon’s Hottest, Newest Franchises to the Future of the Whedonverse (Chicago: Popmatters, 2015), 73.
- 6.
Matthew Pateman, “Celebrity Culture, Brand Whedon and the Post-romantic Fallacy,” September 1, 2017, http://www.patemanponders.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/celebrity-culture-brand-whedon-and-post.htm
- 7.
Daniel Lynch, “Between the Network and the Narrative: Transmedia Storytelling as a Philosophical Lens for Creative Writers,” New Writing 13, no. 2 (May 2016): 161.
- 8.
Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, Anti-Oedipus (London: Continuum, 1984); Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia (London: Continuum, 2004).
- 9.
David Fancy, “Difference, Bodies, Desire: The Collaborative Thought of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari,” Science Fiction Film and Television 3, no. 1 (2010): 93.
- 10.
Michel Foucault, Language, Counter-Memory, Practice: Selected Essays and Interviews (Ithaca: Cornell, 1977), 208.
- 11.
Dorothea Olkowski, Gilles Deleuze and the Ruin of Representation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), 34.
- 12.
John Rajchman, The Deleuze Connections (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2000), 115.
- 13.
Jason J. Wallin, A Deleuzian Approach to Curriculum: Essays on a Pedagogical Life (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 1.
- 14.
Timothy S. Murphy and Daniel W. Smith, “What I Hear Is Thinking Too: Deleuze and Guattari Go Pop,” Echo 3, no. 1 (2001): 1.
- 15.
Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, Kafka: Towards a Minor Literature (Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 2003), 26–27.
- 16.
Fancy, “Difference, Bodies, Desire,” 100.
- 17.
Claire Colebrook, Gilles Deleuze (Oxford: Routledge, 2002), 5.
- 18.
Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia (London: Continuum, 2004), 9.
- 19.
A rhizomatic conception of transmedia storytelling deviates radically from some other conceptions, in which various branches of narrative and knowledge are seen to follow an arboreal path from a canonized, centralized trunk; for example, Jason Mittell’s reading of transmedia television via centrifugal and centripetal structures in “Strategies of Storytelling on Transmedia Television,” and M. J. Clarke’s use of the “tentpole” in Transmedia Television: New Trends in Network Serial Production.
- 20.
Jean Khalfa, Introduction to the Philosophy of Gilles Deleuze (London: Continuum, 1999), 121.
- 21.
Bret Fletcher, “Soul Purpose,” Angel, season 5, episode 10, directed by David Boreanaz, aired January 21, 2004 (The WB).
- 22.
Mark Fortier, “Deleuze and Guattari and the Aims of Adaptation,” Mosaic 29, no. 1 (1996): n.p.
- 23.
Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, 103–104.
- 24.
Deleuze and Guattari, Kafka: Towards a Minor Literature, 17–18.
- 25.
Ibid., 17.
- 26.
Iatropoulos, “Of Whedonverse Canon and Someone Else’s Sandbox,” 72.
- 27.
Francesca Maria Stefanachi, “The Future of Scholarship: Interview with Professor Rhonda V. Wilcox,” in After the Avengers: From Joss Whedon’s Hottest, Newest Franchises to the Future of the Whedonverse (Chicago: Popmatters, 2015), 29. Wilcox further elaborates on the diverse nature of these collaborations: “Jane Espenson, for instance, wrote on all four of his [Whedon’s] major series and has since written on many others and served as a creator of more than one series. David Greenwalt, who collaborated with Whedon on his second series, now has created another strong series that clearly echoes some of the techniques and themes he practiced with Whedon. Actor Danny Strong has gone on from working with Whedon on Buffy to become an Emmy-award-winning writer of television movies. And there are many more” (29–30).
- 28.
Dale K. Koontz, “Foreword,” in Joss Whedon and Religion: Essays on an Angry Atheist’s Explorations of the Sacred (Jefferson: McFarland, 2013), 3.
- 29.
Deleuze and Guattari, Kafka: Towards a Minor Literature, 18.
- 30.
Aaron Barlow, “‘If It Sucks, It’s Your Fault’: Joss Whedon and the Empowerment of Fans,” in Cult Pop Culture: How the Fringe Became Mainstream (Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2012), 170.
- 31.
David Kociemba, “Understanding the Espensode,” in Buffy Goes Dark: Essays on the Final Two Seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on Television (Jefferson: McFarland, 2009), 24.
- 32.
Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, Anti-Oedipus (London: Continuum, 1984), 371.
- 33.
Deleuze and Guattari, Kafka: Towards a Minor Literature, 18.
- 34.
Ibid., 19.
- 35.
David Lavery, Joss Whedon: A Creative Portrait (New York: I.B. Tauris, 2014), 194; Michael Adams, Slayer Slang: A Buffy the Vampire Slayer Lexicon, New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.
- 36.
Interestingly, Whedon collaborator Tim Minear describes this very “collective demonstrated via language” as an element of the creative process itself: “after my first year at Mutant Enemy, people started to notice that Joss, David Greenwalt, and yours truly all had a similar way of speaking. We’d all affected the same weird cadence - possibly unnatural to all of us, as no one could quite remember how it started” (Kowalski and Kreider, viii).
- 37.
Lavery, Joss Whedon: A Creative Portrait, 193.
- 38.
Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, 105.
- 39.
Lavery, Joss Whedon: A Creative Portrait, 194.
- 40.
Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari, and Robert Brinkley, “What Is a Minor Literature?” Mississippi Review 11, no. 3 (1983): 21.
- 41.
Whedon has contributed to, and collaborated on, many songs and musical compositions in Whedonverse texts: for example, BtVS, Firefly, Much Ado About Nothing (2012), Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog (2008) and its companion piece Commentary! The Musical (2008).
- 42.
Joss Whedon, “Once More, with Feeling,” Buffy the Vampire Slayer, season 6, episode 7, directed by Joss Whedon, aired November 6, 2001 (UPN).
- 43.
Rhonda Wilcox, Why Buffy Matters: The Art of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (London: I.B. Tauris, 2005), 204.
- 44.
Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, 105.
- 45.
That said, in keeping with his over-arching critique of capitalism, Deleuze also conversely depicts the “popular” as an enormous homogenizing machine depriving “art” of its place and value in contemporary society. It is beyond the remit of this chapter to discuss this; see Deleuze, Negotiations: 1972–1990 (New York: Columbia University Press), 60.
- 46.
Gary Genosko, Félix Guattari: A Critical Introduction (New York: Pluto Press, 2009), 157.
- 47.
Gilles Deleuze, Dialogues (Athlone Press: London, 1977), 45.
- 48.
Colebrook, Gilles Deleuze, 130.
- 49.
Marti Noxon, “The Wish,” Buffy the Vampire Slayer, season 3, episode 9, directed by David Greenwalt, aired December 8, 1998 (The WB); Joss Whedon, “Doppelgangland,” Buffy the Vampire Slayer, season 3, episode 16, directed by Joss Whedon, aired February 23, 1999 (The WB).
- 50.
David Kociemba, “‘Where’s the Fun?’ The Comic Apocalypse in ‘The Wish’,” Slayage: The Journal of Whedon Studies 6, no. 3 (2007): 2, http://www.whedonstudies.tv/uploads/2/6/2/8/26288593/kociemba_slayage_6.3.pdf.
- 51.
Barlow, “If It Sucks It’s Your Fault,” 171.
- 52.
Many examples could be presented here in terms of the dialogue and creative processes that take place between creators and fans, primarily facilitated by the Internet; for example, the fan interactions on the official BtVS forums that inspired the creation of the Polgara demon as featured in BtVS’s “The I In team” (4.13.) David Fury, “The I in Team,” Buffy the Vampire Slayer, season 4, episode 13, directed by James A. Contner, aired February 8, 2000 (The WB). See Nancy Holder, “Writing Tie-ins,” 195.
- 53.
Linda Jencson, “All Those Apocalypses: Disaster Studies and Community in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel ,” in Reading Joss Whedon (New York: Syracuse University Press, 2014), 112.
- 54.
Stacey Abbott, “Can’t Stop the Signal,” in Investigating Firefly and Serenity : Science Fiction on the Frontier (New York: I.B. Tauris, 2008), 237.
- 55.
Casey J. McCormick, “Active Fandom: Labor and Love in the Whedonverse,” in A Companion to Media Fandom and Fan Studies (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2018), 375.
- 56.
Joss Whedon, “Let’s Watch a Girl Get Beaten to Death,” May 20, 2007, http://www.whedonesque.com/comments/13271. For a detailed summary of events surrounding this blog post, contextualized via Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog , see Alyson Buckman, “‘Go Ahead! Run Away! Say It Was Horrible!’: Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog as Resistant Text.”
- 57.
Trish Salah, “Of Activist Fandoms, Auteur Pedagogy, and Imperial Feminism,” in Muslim Women, Transnational Feminism and the Ethics of Pedagogy: Contested Imaginaries in Post-9/11 Cultural Practice (Abingdon: Routledge, 2014), 162.
- 58.
Todd May, Gilles Deleuze: An Introduction (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 150.
- 59.
Gilles Deleuze, Cinema 2: The Time Image (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1989), 178.
- 60.
Joss Whedon, “Chosen,” Buffy the Vampire Slayer, season 7, episode 22, directed by Joss Whedon, aired May 20, 2003 (UPN).
- 61.
Cheryl Vint, “‘Killing Us Softly?’ A Feminist Search for the ‘Real’ Buffy,” Slayage: The Journal of Whedon Studies 5, no. 2 (2002): 21, http://www.whedonstudies.tv/uploads/2/6/2/8/26288593/vint_slayage_2.1.pdf.
- 62.
For a detailed examination of this debate, see Lauren Schultz, “Hot Chicks with Superpowers: The Contested Feminism of Joss Whedon.”
- 63.
Pateman, “Celebrity Culture, Brand Whedon and the Post-romantic Fallacy.”
- 64.
Both Dollhouse (2009–2010) and Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) have been subject to much critical interrogation as to whether their problematic gender representations constitute a betrayal of Whedon’s much touted feminism. Regarding Whedon himself; in August 2017 Whedon’s ex-wife Kai Cole accusing Whedon of being “a hypocrite preaching feminist ideals…a man who does not practice what he preaches” (Cole 2017). This sent shockwaves through various fan communities, just one example being the immediate closure of long-running Whedon fan site Whedonesque. As Jowett and Frouhard-Dourlent summarize: “the fallout from Cole’s article is yet to be determined, though it is worth pointing out that infidelity does not prevent someone from producing feminist work…Whedon scholarship has long debated Whedon’s relationship to feminisms, and scholars within queer studies have been some of the most critical of his supposedly egalitarian and inclusive representations” (Jowett and Frouhard-Dourlent 2017, 3).
- 65.
The interactions between Deleuzian and feminist theory are unsurprisingly very complex. See Rosi Braidotti, “Nomadism with a Difference: Deleuze’s Legacy in a Feminist Perspective.”
- 66.
J. Macgregor Wise and Jennifer Daryl Slack, Culture and Technology (New York: Peter Lang, 2015), 129.
- 67.
Tamsin E. Lorraine, Deleuze and Guattari’s Immanent Ethics: Theory, Subjectivity, and Duration (New York: SUNY Press, 2011), 15.
- 68.
Lauren Schultz, “‘Hot Chicks with Superpowers’: The Contested Feminism of Joss Whedon,” in Reading Joss Whedon (New York: Syracuse University Press, 2014), 357.
- 69.
Lorraine, Deleuze and Guattari’s Immanent Ethics, 5.
- 70.
Lorna Jowett, “Whedon, Weinstein and Why Feminism Matters,” October 30, 2017, https://womensfilmandtelevisionhistory.wordpress.com/2017/10/30/whedon-weinstein-and-why-feminism-matters.
- 71.
Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, 19.
- 72.
Deleuze and Guattari, Kafka: Towards a Minor Literature, 27.
- 73.
Ibid., 41.
- 74.
Joss Whedon, “Let’s Watch a Girl Get Beaten to Death.”
- 75.
Inna Semetsky and Diana Masny, Deleuze and Education (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2013), 4.
- 76.
Deleuze, Negotiations, 143.
- 77.
Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, xix.
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Starr, M. (2019). “To Speak Against an Opponent Eloquently Makes You an Unusual Personage”: Joss Whedon as Deleuzian “Minor Writer”. In: Kitchens, J., Hawk, J. (eds) Transmediating the Whedonverse(s). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24616-7_7
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