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It was a simple, powerful idea that young college graduate Joseph “Joss” Whedon had in the mid-1980s.
What if the petite blonde who dies gruesome deaths in so many horror films is now the heroine with supernatural powers herself?
In other words, for once it's a cool, tough woman who declares war on evil and saves the world by the way?
Raise the curtain for "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", the TV series that the American developed years later from this idea and which premiered in 1997 on The WB.
"Buffy" became one of the most successful TV formats of the 90s and was the early inspiration for numerous other series that dealt with the supernatural, witches or the love of vampires.
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And "Buffy" is still cult.
To date, the series - seven seasons, the film ended in 2003 - has a large, active fan base organized in numerous Internet forums.
Some of the stars who were back then, but are no longer as successful today, can still make a living from paid “meet and greets” with their fans.
There are also comics, books, video games, merchandising and the series has even left its mark on cultural and film studies - dissertations were written “about Buffy” and entire seminars were held.
Buffy Summers (played by Sarah Michelle Gellar) from the small university town of Sunnydale is still an icon of the girl power movement.
There was also a lot of critical acclaim for the numerous, then highly progressive subplots.
Among other things, a lesbian love story was told that even gave viewers the first kiss between two women on US TV.
A storyline that made headlines at the time and was accompanied by warnings from the TV station.
And soon the “Generation Netflix” should also be enthusiastic about the format: Since 2019, screenwriter Monica Owusu-Breen (“Lost”, “Fringe”, “Alias”) has been developing a modern spin-off of the series for a streaming service.
This time, in keeping with the spirit of the times, it should be a black vampire hunter who takes on the demonic underworld.
"Toxic atmosphere"
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The "Buffyverse", as the fan scene calls itself, is all the more shaken: numerous and ever new allegations of abuse are brought against the maker and producer Whedon.
In the meantime, almost all the female stars of the TV series have spoken out in public.
They all formulate serious allegations against the now 56-year-old: On the set of "Buffy" there was a "toxic atmosphere", and the director repeatedly suffered psychological attacks.
Whedon had manipulated, abused power, even threatened actresses with expulsion.
Many of the accusations can still only be read between the lines, the names of those affected are not always mentioned.
But for fans and also for the British and US feature pages, the developments are nonetheless a shock.
"Now 2021 will also take Buffy from me," complained a young woman on Twitter.
Numerous English-language newspapers reported on the case on the front pages.
The cast of "Buffy, The Vampire Slayer".
Cordelia alias Charisma Carpenter is missing
Source: Getty Images / Getty Images
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Because with Whedon it hits a star who has always been considered one of the good guys in the film business.
A man who has repeatedly referred to himself publicly as a “feminist” and who has repeatedly given strong female characters a podium in his films and series.
In the descriptions of those who worked with him in the 90s, only the caricature of an unpleasant, manipulative power man remains of the image of the progressive filmmaker.
The allegations counteract his entire image
It all started with actress Charisma Carpenter, who published a long indictment against Whedon on Twitter.
The director is said to have been very angry when she told him about her pregnancy at a late stage, she writes.
“Do you want to keep it?” Is said to have been the cynical, joking reaction from Whedon, who is himself a father of two.
“With no other choice, I swallowed the abuse and carried on,” she says.
Annoyed by the baby that messed up the whole plot, Whedon allegedly insulted the pregnant young woman as "fat" and incompetent and then removed her from the series as soon as possible (or wrote her out).
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Fans should remember - Carpenter, who played the role of high school beauty Cordelia Chase, suddenly disappeared from the spin-off "Angel", which Whedon had successfully established in the 2000s with characters from "Buffy".
Many fans knew that there were conflicts at the time - but not their severity.
Whedon's essence is to create "a toxic and hostile work environment," Carpenter continued.
Specifically, she described his approach as follows: "He was mean and vicious, openly disparaging others and often created favorites by pitting people against each other to compete and for his attention and recognition."
Played the Cordelia: Charisma Carpenter
Source: AP
Nevertheless, she was silent for a long time, yes, even at many conventions and fan meetings, she still looked good at the bad game.
“Despite the harassment, part of me was still seeking confirmation.
I found excuses for his behavior and suppressed my own pain. ”Her accusations culminate in one sentence:“ Joss was the vampire. ”
Buffy also formulates allegations
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As soon as her statement was on the market, several other stars of the series also expressed themselves, including, surprisingly, leading actress Sarah Michelle Gellar.
“While I'm proud to associate my name with Buffy Summers, I don't want to be associated with the name Joss Whedon forever.
I am currently more focused on raising my family and surviving a pandemic, so I will not make any further statements at this point.
I stand by all of the abuse survivors and I am proud that they spoke out, ”Gellar wrote on Instagram.
Then it happened in quick succession: Gellar's film sister Dawn (played by Michelle Trachtenberg, only 15 on the set at the time) retweeted the post and wrote: "As a 35-year-old woman, I'm brave enough to publish this again." She also played on "his inappropriate behavior" allegedly experienced as a teenager.
Sarah Michelle Gellar, who also made a career as a movie star after "Buffy"
Source: AP
As the “Guardian” wants to know, the family even contractually stipulated that Trachtenberg was not allowed to be alone in a room with Whedon.
Also on the Cordelia team: Amber Benson, who played the student Tara.
The show had a "toxic environment" that came "from above," she wrote.
He added, "A lot of damage has been done during that time, and many of us are still processing it over 20 years later."
The wife made a marriage hell public in 2017
It is not the first time that the possibly destructive sides of the director, who once made his debut on the series "Roseanne" and most recently made Hollywood blockbusters from the Marvel and Fantasy universes, made headlines.
In 2017 his long-time wife Kai Cole (married from 1995, divorced in 2016) turned to the press.
Your allegations anticipate much of what the "Buffy" stars are now formulating.
Your account is still up to date and all the more remarkable because it also gives you a glimpse behind the scenes of the otherwise progressive and left-wing liberal US film industry.
“Everyone believes that they were the good ones to stand up for women's rights.
In private, however, exactly the opposite happened, ”and that puts the case close to the #MeToo movement, wrote Cole at the time.
In retrospect, she too felt abused and humiliated.
"... I see now how he used his relationship with me as a protective shield both during and after our marriage so that no one would question his relationships with other women or question his writing as anything other than feminist," the letter reads. which the magazine "The Wrap" published exclusively.
"Everyone believes that they were the good ones to stand up for women's rights," says the ex-wife of Joss Whedon
Source: AP
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Cole denounced the double standards of a man who comes from the urban, left-liberal New York milieu.
Whedon's father and grandfather were also screenwriters, and his mother a teacher.
“He always had a lot of girlfriends, but he told me it was because his mother raised him to be a feminist, so he just liked women more.
He said he admired and respected women, he had no (
sexual, d. Ed.
) Lust for them.
I believed him and trusted him, "writes Cole looking back.
On the set of "Buffy", however, her husband had a first secret affair.
She does not mention the name of the co-star either.
For more than 15 years, however, Cole continued, she endured the fact that her (increasingly successful) husband had affairs with others, with actresses, employees, fans and even friends of the couple.
“He wanted everything;
he didn't want to make up his mind, ”so her bitter conclusion.
No comment from Whedon himself
And Joss Whedon?
There was no reaction to the article in "Wrap" magazine at the time.
Whedon is silent again, his Twitter account remains silent.
His management told "Variety" that the director would not comment.
Alyson Hannigan (she played Buffy's best friend Willow Rosenberg) and male sidekick Xander Harris (Nicholas Brendon) have also not commented yet.
The British "Buffy" star Anthony Stewart Head, however, drew a completely different version of the events.
He doesn't want to have noticed any of this.
Head, who was significantly older than his female co-stars at the time, played Buffy's mentor, Rupert Giles.
He told the British Independent: "I was up most of the night just looking through my memories and thinking, 'What have I missed?'" In retrospect, Head even expressed disappointment with his co-stars: "I was a kind of father figure.
I would hope that someone would come to me and say, 'I have problems, I just had a terrible conversation. "But that did not happen.'"
I was kind of a father figure.
I would hope that someone would come to me and say, "I have problems"
Actor Anthony Stewart Head
So did the failures only affect the (vulnerable) young stars who were still at the beginning of their careers - and thanks to "Buffy" actually made the breakthrough - and not experienced actors?
It would be conceivable, but this explanation does not create more sympathy for Whedon either.
But it is also conceivable that under the impression of the #MeToo debate, many actors will now relive experiences that they accepted back then and now find the strength to classify and denounce them.
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Carpenter, for example, explicitly referred to the Ray Fisher case at the beginning of her posting.
The actor had accused Whedon in a Twitter post in 2020 of having displayed “gross, abusive, unprofessional and completely unacceptable” behavior on the set of “Justice League” (2017).
You think Fisher, so Carpenter now.
Will "Buffy" be canceled anytime soon?
So what's next?
The debate comes at a time when numerous works from film and television are being viewed with new eyes, and this is also a consequence of the numerous #MeToo debates in recent years.
The Disney corporation, for example, has meanwhile added warning notices to its films, and in the “Buffyversum” there have always been and still are discussions in which the characters and plots from the past are sometimes critically dismantled.
A scene in which the vampire Spike - once Buffy's mortal enemy and now her secret lover - tries to rape her is constantly controversial.
One of the worst scenes he ever had to play, actor James Marsters has been complaining for years, but at the express request of the scriptwriters and the maker Whedon it turned out as violent and voyeuristic as it did.
And what about the constantly misogynous failures of Xander Harris, which at that time passed as a funny "college talk" and now only seem overbearing?
Or the fact that the only happy LGTB relationship in the series ends with the death of one of the actresses (Tara) - and turns the survivor (Willow) into a murderous avenging angel?
Buffy (front), behind her you can see Cordelia, Xander, Willow and Oz
Source: Getty Images / Hulton Archive
All of this moves the - quite numerous - young viewers who are only rediscovering the series today.
It has long been argued that what was more important now: That these actions, characters and figures of identification even existed in the 90s and how important ("empowering") they were for young (queer) women back then - or whether they no longer meet today's standards, yes maybe even harmful by now.
So will “Buffy, The Vampire Slayer” soon be canceled in the USA, that is, banned from the screens?
It would be possible.
But everyone can still form their own picture and simply watch the series for themselves: The old "Buffy" episodes are still offered on numerous streaming services.