Joss Whedon

American author and television producer Amy Pascale’s biography, Joss Whedon: The Biography (2014), chronicles the work of Joss Whedon, an American director and screenwriter best known for creating the cult television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer and directing the 2012 film, The Avengers. While the book is thoroughly researched and filled with quotes from Whedon and his collaborators, Joss Whedon is less a traditional biography and more a work of cultural criticism focusing on his creative output rather than his life.

Born in 1964 in New York City, Whedon is the son of Tom Whedon, a writer for the television sitcoms Alice and The Golden Girls, and the grandson of John Whedon, a writer on The Dick Van Dyke Show and The Donna Reed Show. Whedon attends Riverdale Country School where his mother, Ann, teaches history. He also attends a boarding school in Winchester, England for three years where he is subject to constant bullying. One of Whedon's frequent collaborators, David Greenwalt, tells Pascale that Whedon channels much of this trauma into his writing, adding, "If Joss Whedon had had one good day in high school, we wouldn't be here."

Upon graduating from Wesleyan University in 1987, Whedon travels to Los Angeles to work in the television business, following in the wake of his father and grandfather. Around this time, he begins to develop the idea for his most famous and beloved character, Buffy Summers, mentioned in his earliest drafts as "Rhonda, the Immortal Waitress."



One of Whedon's first jobs is as a writer on the popular yet controversial sitcom Roseanne, joining the staff in the show's second year. He enters a tense writing room, where early on the show's star Roseanne Barr accuses the staff of leaking sensitive details about her personal life. In the early 1990s, Whedon becomes a script consultant for films, punching up the dialogue for various action movies including 1994's Speed. He also finishes his own screenplay for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which is made into a 1992 film starring Kristy Swanson, Luke Perry, and Donald Sutherland. Though initially involved in its production, Whedon eventually walks off the set after the studio and director remove the darker, more abstract elements of his script to turn it into a light-hearted comedy. Whedon also clashes with Sutherland who is frequently allowed by the director to go off-script and improvise his own dialogue, simply because he is the biggest name on the set. Despite this setback, Whedon experiences his biggest success yet when he is nominated for an Academy Award for co-writing the hit 1995 Pixar film, Toy Story.

Over the next two years, Whedon further develops the character of Buffy Summers for a Buffy the Vampire Slayer television series that airs its first season in 1997. He states that his goal with Buffy Summers is to subvert the horror movie trope of the helpless blonde cheerleader who enters a dark alley and gets killed. Gifted with supernatural powers, Buffy spends seven seasons fighting vampires, demons, and other creatures of the night, most of which stand-in for metaphors about growing up in high school and college. Pascale highlights the second season episode "Innocence" as a prime example of this. In the episode, Buffy loses her virginity to her boyfriend, only for him to become immediately afflicted with a curse that turns him evil, a metaphor for the fraught psychosexual and gender dynamics often experienced by young people when they first experiment with sexual activity. Buffy the Vampire Slayer also inspires a spin-off show, Angel. Though generally considered an inferior show to Buffy, Pascale points out that popular opinion of Angel's five seasons has grown dramatically in the years since it came off the air.

In 2002, Whedon takes on his most ambitious project yet, the futuristic "space western" television series, Firefly. Whedon and Pascale both lament the Fox network's handling of Firefly. Not only does the network promote the series as a comedy rather than a serious work of science fiction, but it also places the show in a Friday evening timeslot when fewer Americans watch television. The network also airs the episodes out of order, not debuting the pilot until more than ten episodes have already aired. While Firefly has a comparable viewership to Buffy, it airs on a much larger network where audience expectations are higher. Though ultimately canceled before its entire season order is aired, Firefly becomes a cult hit on DVD where the original episode sequencing is restored. Whedon follows up Firefly with a theatrical film sequel, Serenity, which wraps up some of the storytelling threads in the series.



During the Writers Guild of America strike of 2007 and 2008, Whedon independently finances the three-episode web series, Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog starring Neil Patrick Harris and frequent Whedon collaborator Nathan Fillion. Pascale considers Dr. Horrible a groundbreaking achievement at a time when web video and independent online distribution are still in their infancy. Having financed the film himself and receiving 100 percent of its profits, Whedon admits that he earned more money from Dr. Horrible than he did directing the international smash hit, The Avengers,

When the Writers Guild strike is called off, Whedon goes to work on his fourth television series, Dollhouse, an ambitious science fiction series involving mind-controlled human "dolls" who are exploited by wealthy clients. Despite lackluster ratings and the most mixed critical response of Whedon's career, Fox renews the series for a second season to avoid the backlash it received after canceling Firefly.

In 2012, Whedon embarks on arguably his biggest project yet, the $200 million-dollar superhero movie, The Avengers. Though a difficult shoot, the final product garners critical acclaim and goes on to become the fourth highest-grossing film of all time in North America. Although Whedon is slated to direct the sequel to The Avengers, he tells Pascale that he prefers working in television, adding, "TV is a question, movies are an answer."



Although Joss Whedon is short on traditional biographical details, it is a comprehensive overview of Whedon's career and a compelling piece of cultural criticism, particularly for those who already enjoy its subject's work.