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    ‘We Need to Talk About Cosby.’ (Among Others.)

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    W. Kamau Bell’s documentary series is a model of how to engage honestly with disgraced artists and their art.There is a simple, amazing thing that W. Kamau Bell does in his Showtime documentary series, “We Need to Talk About Cosby.” While interviewing subjects about the comedian and actor accused of multiple rapes, Bell has them watch scenes of Cosby’s performances on a tablet.Not a monitor on the set. Not a flatscreen on the wall. The interviewees — entertainers, experts, women who have accused Cosby of sexual abuse — hold a small screen in their laps. The device makes them turn their faces downward, lighting up at warm childhood memories or registering disgust at punch lines that now ring horrific.It’s a small gesture, but it’s important. You have to hold in your head what you know about Bill Cosby the man. And you have to hold literally in your hand what you know about Bill Cosby’s work.It is intimate, as art inherently is. Something came out of the artist’s mind and went into yours. At best, this is a transcendent experience. At worst — at the moment with Cosby — it can be unsettling, dissonant, sickening.Bell’s series, airing in four parts on Sundays on Showtime and streaming in full online, uses a straight chronological structure to consider, side by side, the arc of Cosby’s career, his particular importance to Black Americans and the stories of the many women who have reported being drugged and sexually assaulted by Cosby over decades.(In 2018, Cosby was convicted of sexual assault. His conviction was overturned in 2021 by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which ruled that prosecutors had reneged on an agreement not to charge him after a deposition in a civil suit, in which he had admitted giving women quaaludes in an effort to have sex with them.)The series is outstanding enough for how it contextualizes Cosby’s legacy, especially for Black America, and the charges against him, which Cosby denies. Bell grew up with Cosby — “I was raised by Fat Albert” — but he also has a sharp critic’s eye as a performer himself. Analyzing the famous lip sync of Ray Charles’s “Night Time Is the Right Time” from “The Cosby Show,” for instance, Bell notes how it specifically spoke to Black Americans by having the Huxtable family perform to the grandparents on the set, rather than toward the home audience through the camera..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-1g3vlj0{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1g3vlj0{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-1g3vlj0 strong{font-weight:600;}.css-1g3vlj0 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1g3vlj0{margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0.25rem;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}And in interviews with numerous Cosby accusers, the series offers harrowing accounts of how Cosby leveraged his trust and moral authority — as a groundbreaking comic, pop-cultural educator and TV father figure — both to bully people professionally and to cover for, as they describe it, the acts of a predator.But it’s in bringing the two sides together that “We Need to Talk About Cosby” does something too rare in cases like this. It holds Cosby’s achievements and his wrongs close, and it recognizes that there may be unresolvable dissonance between the two.Too often, the public conversation around Cosby — and around other artists who have fallen into various forms of disgrace — labors to fix these contradictions. We turn them into morality-play debates, like “Should you still watch ‘The Cosby Show’ (or read ‘Harry Potter,’ or see Woody Allen’s movies, or laugh at Dave Chappelle’s or Louis C.K.’s standup, or … )?” The question shunts the ethical burden of an artist’s words or deeds onto the audience.Cosby (with Malcolm-Jamal Warner, far left; Keshia Knight Pulliam, middle right; and Tempestt Bledsoe) made little distinction between himself and his character on “The Cosby Show.”NBC Universal, via Getty ImagesOne ham-handed way of resolving the tension is by insisting that people “Separate the art from the artist,” an especially bizarre request given how many such artists rely on associating their creations with their personas. (Cosby made little distinction between himself and Cliff Huxtable.) The biographical Michael Jackson musical “MJ” takes this to an extreme, ignoring the charges that Jackson molested children, separating the artist from the allegations.Another way is to retrofit your view of the work to match what you now know about the artist. Maybe the work becomes a kind of crime scene, full of clues and confessions we might have seen earlier, if only we had known to look. (There is some of this in Bell’s documentary, which brings up Cosby’s much-noted fixation on aphrodisiac drugs in his standup and TV comedy.)Or maybe the art must be retroactively downgraded. A work that we once erroneously believed to be good, because we were misguided, or taken in by a bad actor, is revealed to have been tainted all along with hackery and hidden self-justifications. The dissonance is resolved. The bad person simply made a bad thing.Appreciating art, especially narrative art, requires a moral sensibility. It’s what allows you to distinguish good behavior from bad, to orient yourself in a fictional world’s moral universe. And we live in a moralistic time, when many audiences don’t want to see daylight between the text of a work and the beliefs of its creator.So it’s tempting to believe that only good people create good art — and to be disturbed that you, a good person, have connected in some way with the creation of someone who turns out to be a monster. Who wants to be a sucker, a victim, an accomplice?It may be even more disturbing to acknowledge not only that a bad person created a great work but also that the work can’t be neatly isolated from the creator’s worst aspects. We each harbor within us good and bad impulses, which hopefully most of us master in favor of good, but which every artist, however moral or immoral, draws on to create.This messy, unsatisfying reality plays out in a damning recent New York magazine story on the TV creator and film director Joss Whedon. Like Cosby, Whedon benefited from a righteous public image — in his case, as a feminist and thoughtful nerd whose enlightenment elevated his pulp-literate creations, especially “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” That image collapsed in recent years amid accusations that he treated actors cruelly on set, had affairs with employees and used his persona as a shield. (Whedon has disputed some of the charges.)Though Whedon seems to participate in the article as damage control, he does himself few favors. The interviewer, Lila Shapiro, hands him the stake and he does the rest. Asked about his affairs on the “Buffy” set, “he quickly added that he had felt he ‘had’ to sleep with them, that he was ‘powerless’ to resist.”But Whedon’s bad allyhood and rationalizations are only part of the story. Shapiro also writes insightfully about the “Buffy” fans who, whatever their idol’s hypocrisy, were genuinely thrilled, inspired and given a witty voice by the show’s outcast heroes. Some of them have tried to adjust to what they now know about Whedon by adjusting their view of his work:Over the last year, some of his fans have tried to scrub him out too, erasing him from their narratives about what made “Buffy” great. In posts and essays, they have downplayed his role in the show’s development, pointing out that many people, including many women, were critically important to its success. It may be hard to accept that Whedon could have understood the pain of a character like Buffy, a woman who endures infidelity, attempted rape and endless violence. But the belief that her story was something other than a projection of his psyche is ultimately just another fantasy. Whedon did understand pain — his own. Some of that pain, as he once put it to me, “spilled over” into the people around him. And some of it was channeled into his art.“Buffy” was always a collaborative work, of course; nearly all TV is. But it didn’t suddenly become more collaborative because we needed it to be. Which leaves a disappointed fan with a dilemma: How to sit with what you felt once and what you know now, with how an artwork moved you and how reality appalled you, without diminishing either to make room for the other.“We Need to Talk About Cosby” is as good a model as I’ve seen for doing this. It doesn’t tell anyone what they “should” do about Cosby or “The Cosby Show.” But it asks the viewer to do something hard: to accept that what you once thought about the work still holds true — it actually made you feel what it did — but that the things you know about the artist are also true, and the two may be inseparable, in ways that might make it painful ever to look at the work again.Throughout the series, Bell employs the idea of “the Cosby we knew” versus the Cosby we didn’t. In a closing monologue, he says: “There were times when I was making this show that I wanted to quit. I wanted to hold on to my memories of Bill Cosby before I knew about Bill Cosby. I guess I can — as long as I admit, as long as we all admit, that there’s a Bill Cosby we didn’t know.”This Jekyll-and-Hyde division makes sense as a rhetorical device, a way of talking about the good that can be acknowledged in people and the evil that must be deplored in them. But as Bell’s wise documentary also makes clear, there wasn’t really one Bill Cosby and another secret one. There isn’t a good Cosby and a bad Cosby, whom we can store in different mental compartments. There is just Bill Cosby, about whom we didn’t know enough and now know dreadfully more. In the end, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are always the same guy. More

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      in Television

      Review: ‘The Nevers,’ From HBO and (Formerly) Joss Whedon

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      An allegorical alt-superhero series about gifted women in Victorian London makes it to the screen, but without its currently embattled creator.One of the puzzlements of “The Nevers,” the new alt-superhero show beginning Sunday on HBO, is the title. The peculiarly gifted late-Victorian Londoners, mostly women, who serve as the show’s heroes (and some of its villains) are never called “nevers”; they’re most often referred to as the Touched. In the first four of the series’s 12 episodes, nothing is called the Nevers. You can understand not calling a show “The Touched,” but it’s still a little confusing.And the confusion doesn’t end there. “The Nevers,” while handsomely produced and, from moment to moment, reasonably diverting, doesn’t catch fire in those early episodes in part because we — along with the characters — are still trying to figure out what the heck is going on.Before this goes any further, it’s time to mention that “The Nevers” — a rare case these days of a genre series not based on an existing property — was created for the screen by Joss Whedon. There are things to be explained about Whedon’s involvement with the show, but for now let’s stick to the synergism between the new series and his great creation, “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.”In “Buffy” Whedon worked out one of the best and most sustained metaphors American pop culture has seen: California teenage life as a constant battle against demons, aided by the small band of friends who really get you. In “The Nevers” he tries something similar but in period costume, giving X-Men-like powers to women and other devalued members of Victorian society so that they can actually raise their voices against — and physically confront — the male, colonialist, capitalist hegemony.It sounds good in theory, as if it might have “Buffy”-like potential, with the added enjoyment of a gloss on sources like “Frankenstein,” “Dracula” and “Alice in Wonderland” — a league of extraordinary Victorian women.But in practice it doesn’t take off. It may be that Whedon and his collaborators, including the “Buffy” writer and producer Jane Espenson, just didn’t have the same feel for turn-of-the-20th-century London as they did for contemporary suburban California — there’s a slightly stilted and synthetic quality to “The Nevers,” despite (or maybe reinforced by) the occasional anachronistically modern dialogue. The humor feels arch, and the action, which combines 21st-century fluidity with a rollicking period style, is mostly flat.But there’s also a problem with the overall conception. The allegory in “Buffy” felt universally human and, despite its 1990s suburban specificity, timeless; the framework of “The Nevers” feels narrower, a more self-conscious attempt to tweak a historical situation to make it relevant to the current social and political moment, with suggestions of human trafficking and medical experimentation and a literal, highly graphic depiction of the silencing of women’s voices. (The series was announced in the summer of 2018, about nine months after the first major #MeToo revelations.)And that need for the show to resonate with our present priorities ties into the frustrating vagueness, so far, of the storytelling. The main action of “The Nevers” takes place three years after an “event” whose details won’t be spoiled here. The event led to the disparate abilities, referred to as “turns,” that some Londoners now possess, from typical mutant stuff like seeing the future and physical strength to more unusual afflictions like speaking only in non-English languages or an “Alice in Wonderland”-like propensity to grow in height.Ann Skelly in “The Nevers.” The characters’ abilities originated with an event of mysterious origin and significance.Keith Bernstein/HBOBut it seems — and here it gets unclear — that either everyone has forgotten what the event was, or they have for some reason chosen not to talk about it. You can see a practical reason for this: It tilts the show away from science fiction and puts the emphasis on a mix of fantasy, mystery and period crime drama. Another, less charitable, observation is that it allowed Whedon to indulge in big-conspiracy plotting and delayed narrative gratification in ways that are, so far, more irritating than intriguing.None of this might matter if there were characters that we really cared about and performances that drew us in, but “The Nevers” is also lacking in those departments. The main characters — the action-oriented, prescient Amalia (Laura Donnelly) and the gadget-maker Penance (Ann Skelly), who lead a community of the Touched — are thinly drawn and at best moderately engaging. There are performers around the edges who generate more interest, including Ben Chaplin as a sympathetic policeman, Pip Torrens as an antagonistic aristocrat and Eleanor Tomlinson as a Touched woman gifted with a supernatural singing ability.In considering the future course of “The Nevers,” of course, it’s necessary to point out that Whedon is no longer involved with the show — he left it late last year, coincidentally or not following a round of public accusations of tyrannical and misogynistic behavior on the sets of previous projects. HBO is releasing the series in two blocks of six episodes each, and recent promotional materials have specified that Whedon’s name is attached only to the first block. (Philippa Goslett is now the showrunner; Whedon directed three of the first six episodes and wrote the pilot.)So to a far greater extent than usual, the progress of “The Nevers” through its first season is anyone’s guess, though Amalia probably knows how it all turns out. More

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      in Movies

      Zack Snyder’s Rough and Tumble Ride With ‘Justice League’

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }What to WatchBest Movies on NetflixBest of Disney PlusBest of Amazon PrimeBest Netflix DocumentariesNew on NetflixAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyZack Snyder’s Rough and Tumble Ride With ‘Justice League’The director digs into his exit from the original version of the epic and what led to his edit, the Snyder Cut, which HBO Max will release Thursday. “Am I a provocateur? A little bit.”Snyder at his home in Los Angeles. He said of his exit from the original “Justice League”: “The decision to leave was 100 percent mine.”Credit…Maggie Shannon for The New York TimesMarch 14, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ETEven superhero movies can have dual identities.To most filmgoers, “Justice League” is just another misbegotten comic-book adaptation that came and went in 2017 — one in which DC heroes like Batman (Ben Affleck), Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) and Aquaman (Jason Momoa) united to battle an intergalactic foe.But to genre fans, “Justice League” is laden with notorious history: the director Zack Snyder exited the project during postproduction, leaving it to be completed by Joss Whedon (“The Avengers”), who had come on to help rewrite it. The result was an unsatisfying attempt by Warner Brothers to kick-start its own Marvel-style franchise.Snyder occupies a singular space in the blockbuster business. After breakthrough films like “Dawn of the Dead” (2004) and “300” (2007), he has been both praised and pilloried for unapologetically bombastic superhero opuses like “Watchmen” (2009), “Man of Steel” (2013) and “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” — his big, brutal dust-up between those two characters, which grossed $873 million worldwide in 2016 yet still ended up a critical and commercial disappointment.The making of “Justice League” coincided with a tragic period in Snyder’s life; his daughter Autumn died by suicide in March 2017, and his family was mourning her while he tried to finish the film.It would be understandable if Snyder had chosen to disown and disregard “Justice League” entirely, but he did not. His fans and cast members promoted online petitions and a hashtag, #ReleaseTheSnyderCut, encouraging him to put forward his own edit of the movie. Eventually, Snyder acknowledged that such a project existed — not a finished version of the film but a rough assembly that Warner Brothers gave him a budget of about $70 million to complete. HBO Max (which, like Warner Brothers, is owned by WarnerMedia) will release this four-hour film, now called “Zack Snyder’s Justice League,” on Thursday.From left, Jason Momoa as  Aquaman, Ray Fisher as Cyborg, Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman and Ezra Miller as the Flash in the Snyder Cut.Credit…HBO MaxOn a Sunday afternoon this month, Snyder, dressed in a basic white T-shirt that exposed his heavily tattooed forearms, was relaxing at his home in Los Angeles as he spoke in a video interview. In mid-conversation, his 10-year-old daughter, Sage, barnstormed through the room to fiddle with her father’s iPad settings, and he playfully shooed her away.Snyder, 55, is both self-serious and self-aware, sometimes puffing up his own accomplishments and tearing them down in the same breath. He knows that whether his “Justice League” cut is celebrated or panned like the original, it helps burnish his professional standing either way.Riffing on the exorbitant running time of the film, he said facetiously, “It’s like ‘The Irishman,’ but with action. You could say that. That’s a fine review. You could also say it’s the ‘Godfather’ of superhero movies. That’s another fine review.”More sincerely, he spoke of the strange satisfaction at getting to release the Snyder Cut and the toll it had taken on him. “It’s in some ways fun to surf the wave of a cultural phenomenon,” he said. “In other ways it’s terrifying and horrible.”He spoke further about the making of “Zack Snyder’s Justice League,” the circumstances that led up to it and whether audiences still want to see his grandiose take on these enduring characters. Here are edited excerpts from the conversation.Was there a point, going back to “Batman v Superman,” when you realized you were on thin ice with Warner Brothers?There was a definitely a shift in confidence that they had, and I think that kept multiplying as we went along. They had this giant I.P. [intellectual property] and their confidence in my point of view had eroded.Was it a warning sign when the studio brought in Joss Whedon for rewrites?It was a bit of a red flag. They were like, We think punching up the humor and doing some more fun stuff will be great. I was like, Hmm, I’m happy to shoot a scene if you guys have a good idea. We kicked around a bunch of different writers and they had come in with Joss. He’s a talented writer, no two ways about it. But I really didn’t see the point. And then when I was like, I’m done, I can’t do this, I feel like they were volunteering Joss as the de facto finisher.You left “Justice League” of your own volition?Absolutely. The decision to leave was 100 percent mine. I knew the fight that I was in for with them. And my family needed me, and I needed them. I was in a struggle at home, and then to go to my place of work and be in a second struggle there seemed like an outrageous thing to do to myself and my loved ones.Did you worry about the long-term ramifications your departure might have for your standing with Warner Brothers or your career?For sure. And the truth is, I was in such a place of desperation, I didn’t care. You know what? Good riddance to “Justice League.” I was like, Guys, really? You’re going to give me a hard time? Let’s go. I’ll fight you right now. [Laughs.] I was not in the mood for that kind of thing. I felt like we had done a great job, and the movie was done, even the two-hour-and-20-minute version that the studio had knocked me down to.How did you end up with a director’s cut of the film?Almost every movie I’ve ever made has a director’s cut. When I said, OK, I’m done, I [told] one of the editors I worked with [Carlos Castillón]: Put it together as best you can, and give it to me. A bunch of my inner-circle buddies who worked on the movie always talked about, Oh, maybe we just drop a thumb drive somewhere and let a “fan” [he makes air quotes] find it. And I was like, that’s funny but I think it’s better if it just lives as this thing that no one will ever see. I’ve lost my appetite for the fight.Should he have tried to emulate Marvel more? Snyder said no: “A director has one skill — your point of view.” Credit…Maggie Shannon for The New York TimesWere you dropping hints to its existence in the hopes that it would eventually be released?It was more just me having fun on [the social network] Vero with my fans. Did I think there would ever be a version of this where the fans’ rallying cry got so loud that a big company like WarnerMedia would consider this as an option? Absolutely not. I thought maybe in 10 years, there might be a DVD version where they might go, Hey, maybe it’s worth a couple dollars if we spruce up the Snyder cut.And now the same media company you clashed with on “Justice League” — under different management — is letting you put out your version of it.I appreciate that, I really do. This movie wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for HBO Max; I’m eternally grateful for them. And the viewing experience is still at a hugely high quality. It’s really up to your TV. It’s in the same aspect ratio as “First Cow.” Those two movies share some common DNA, I think. [Laughs.] I really did like “First Cow,” actually. I would love that in a double feature, “First Cow” and the Snyder cut of “Justice League.”Do you see the DC heroes on a grand level, like characters from Wagner or “Lord of the Rings”?It’s obvious I take these characters and their mythology really seriously. I want them to be fully realized as characters, existing in that world. I don’t think that it’s cool to have fun at their expense. And there was a vision that we had, a complete universe, fully fleshed out, that we really wanted to take all the way.Was that to draw an intentional contrast with what Marvel is doing in its movies?I knew it before “BvS,” when we made “Man of Steel.” Marvel is doing something else. They’re doing, at the highest level, this popular action-comedy with a heart. And they have that nailed. An effort to duplicate that is insanity because they’re so good at it. What DC had was mythology at an epic level, and we were going to take them on this amazing journey. Frankly, I was the only one saying that.The release of your “Justice League” brings back some painful memories, but aren’t you savoring it a bit, too?Only in the sense that it’s three years later, and here I am releasing a four-hour version of the movie. It really shows that the consumer is not wrong in a lot of ways. “They can’t handle anything over two hours, they’re going to lose their minds.” They were underestimated, the audience themselves.How long did you want the theatrical cut of “Justice League” to be?My point of view is that the movie should be about 20 minutes longer each time. “BvS” should be 20 minutes longer than “Man of Steel,” and “Justice League” should be about 20 minutes longer than “BvS.” I thought the movie should be a little closer to three hours when I initially went into it. I know that it’s indulgent. The truth is there’s probably about 10 Snyder cuts — there’s a longer version than the four-hour version. There’s a three-hour version. A two-hour and 20. I think I showed the studio two hours and 40 minutes. And then I showed them subsequent cuts of two hours and 30 minutes, and two hours and 28 minutes, and two hours and 22 minutes.How did you end up with enough footage for a four-hour movie?I do it on every movie. I tend to shoot a lot, but it’s really carefully done. It’s not like we’re just running a second camera. Everything is very methodically thought out. When I sit down to draw the movie, the movie is different than the movie the studio wants or that anybody knows about.Ben Affleck as Batman in “Zack Snyder’s Justice League,” the director’s cut of the movie.Credit…HBO MaxWhy did you bring back some of your actors to shoot a new finale?I added it because this was going to be the last movie I make for the DCU and to have this entire cinematic universe without Batman and Joker meeting up just felt weird. Jared [Leto] and I had a bunch of conversations about it. I had mentioned it to Ben and I was like, Ben, let’s just do it at my house. I could shoot it in the backyard. Don’t tell the studio and I’m not going to pay you guys. I’m just going to shoot it myself.Is that what you ended up doing?No, what happened is it worked out and we were able to do it for real. And then I called the rest of those cast members and said, Hey, would you guys be down to come around and do it.The actor Ray Fisher raised complaints, alleging that Whedon was abusive to him on the “Justice League” reshoots, which led to an investigation by WarnerMedia and other actors coming forward with accounts of similar experiences with Whedon. Were you aware this was happening?Not at the time. The last thing they wanted to do was call me, complaining about them having a hard time shooting. But in retrospect, do I feel bad that they had to go through that? I do. These guys are my friends, and they’re amazing actors, and they’re strong people. I want them to be taken care of and in a healthy situation. I wasn’t there, so your opinion on it is probably is as good as mine.Why did you end the movie with, essentially, a cliffhanger teasing another movie that’s never going to come?The ask was for my version of the movie.Had you gotten to make further ‘Justice League’ movies, what would have happened in them?It’s the fall of Earth, when Superman succumbs to anti-life. And then sending Flash back in time to change one element so that doesn’t happen. And then the big battle where we beat him. When [the villain] Darkseid comes to Earth, in the movie that you’ll never see, the armies of Earth all unite again, as they did before. This time there would be aircraft carriers and Special Forces guys, all the armies of the world would come together, as well as [Aquaman’s fellow] Atlanteans rising out of the ocean and the Themyscirans [Wonder Woman’s compatriots] coming off their island. That was our big finale. But it’s a long drum roll and guitar solo to get there.Darkseid in “Zack Snyder’s Justice League.” If there were sequels, the character would have had a larger role in those, the director said.Credit…HBO MaxSince “Justice League,” there have been other DC movies, like “Aquaman” and “Shazam!”, that have gotten more enthusiastic reviews and made more money. Does that sting for you, that your films didn’t achieve that?I couldn’t be happier. It doesn’t sting for me at all. Those movies are cool, and they’re really well-made and excellent. But “BvS,” love it or hate it, it’s probably the most mentioned movie in hashtags and references. It’s the closest thing to a cult film that could exist at this level of pop culture. Am I a provocateur? A little bit. Is my job to make some pop-culture piece of candy that you eat and forget about the next day? Nah. I would rather [expletive] you up in a movie than make it nice and pretty for everybody. Let’s be frank, there’s no cult of “Aquaman.” Jason is a force of nature, and by all means, I want there to be 100 “Aquaman” movies because he’s an awesome guy. But it’s not controversial. And I have purposely, because I love it, made the movies difficult.Is it possible that the zeitgeist just didn’t embrace your interpretation of these characters?It could be. And that’s fine, too. I don’t have a dog in the hunt. When I made “Watchmen,” it’s deconstructionist. It’s a movie that pokes holes in your heroes. And “BvS” is the same thing. It’s meant to say, Oh, Batman’s drunk and taking painkillers and he’s sleeping with some anonymous girl. He’s a broken person. He dresses up as a bat and he goes out at night and he beats people up. He has issues. I do think the movie came along at a point where everyone was like, oh, we don’t want that Batman. We want Batman to be the warrior-monk who’s cool. And I personally am fine with that.When you see what Marvel is doing in its movies, do you ever think, I should be doing more of that?No, not at all. I don’t know how to hit a ball any different than I hit it. A director has one skill — your point of view. That’s all you have. If you’re trying to imitate another way of making a movie, then you’re on a slippery slope.Even though the DC movies have retained your principal cast members like Gal Gadot and Jason Momoa, they’re moving away from story lines that your films set up and the sense of a shared universe they established. Do you feel like they’re dismantling your legacy?They are 100 percent moving away. They consider the theatrical cut of “Justice League” as canon. That’s their decision. I wish them all the best, and I hope the whole thing is a giant blockbuster on top of blockbuster on top of blockbuster. The stars of those movies are my friends, and I want them to be prosperous, and I want people to love it.Gal Gadot and Affleck in “Batman v  Superman.” Snyder said of that film, “Love it or hate it, it’s probably the most mentioned movie in hashtags and references.”Credit…Clay Enos/Warner Bros.You’ve been making comic-book adaptations for some 15 years. Are you done with that genre entirely? Do you feel you need to get away from it for a while?I don’t think about it in those terms. It was nice to go do “Army of the Dead” [a coming zombie action movie for Netflix]. They were completely supportive, and it was an incredible, cathartic re-immersion into that relationship. I’m trying to put together this movie called “Horse Latitudes,” a super-microbudget movie that I’m going to go shoot with my buddies in South America. It’s about a man’s journey into his past and how does death shape you? Am I ready to make a movie like that? I think so.Are you still planning an adaptation of Ayn Rand’s “The Fountainhead”?“Fountainhead” right now is on the back burner, and I don’t know how that movie gets made, at least not right away. We need a less divided country and a little more liberal government to make that movie, so people don’t react to it in a certain way.Meaning, if it had come out in the last few years, it would have struck the wrong tone?I think so. But we’ll see. I’m in no rush.Do you think your “Justice League” has broader implications for the film industry and the lengths that studios will continue to go to cater to audiences?This is a social experiment. For millions of people, it’s, Oh, look a giant superhero movie — I guess that’s cool. But then for a large portion of my fans, it comes custom-made. [As a viewer] you have the perception, more than ever, that the movie was made singularly for you as you watch it. It’s the culmination of this entire experience: I fought and used the hashtag #ReleaseTheSnyderCut, and it’s in my world, in my computer, on my TV, in my house. I don’t think anybody can quantify what that means yet.What will you do when it’s finally released?I have to go to the dentist on the 18th. That’s how my day’s going to be.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      For ‘Buffy’ Fans, Another Reckoning With the Show’s Creator

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyFor ‘Buffy’ Fans, Another Reckoning With the Show’s CreatorMany fans said they are trying to reconcile accusations of misogyny against Joss Whedon, the creator of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” with their love of a show that celebrated female empowerment.Joss Whedon, seen here at a premiere in 2018, has been accused of abusing actors who worked for him.Credit… Gabriel Olsen/WireImage via Getty ImagesFeb. 15, 2021Updated 4:37 p.m. ETThe Whedon Studies Association, a society of academics devoted to studying the works of Joss Whedon, is debating whether to change its name. Fans who grew up with his signature show, “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” and were planning to introduce it to their children are grappling with what to do.Some said they are regretting tattoos inspired by “Buffy” and other shows Mr. Whedon created.For years, fans of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” which aired on the WB and UPN from 1997 to 2003, have had to reconcile their adoration for a show about a teenage girl who slays monsters with the criticism that often swirled around her creator.Mr. Whedon’s early reputation as a feminist storyteller was tarnished after his ex-wife, the producer Kai Cole, accused him of cheating on her and lying about it. The actress Charisma Carpenter, a star of the “Buffy” spinoff “Angel,” hinted at a fan convention in 2009 that Mr. Whedon was not happy when she became pregnant.In July, Ray Fisher, an actor who starred in Mr. Whedon’s 2017 film “Justice League,” accused him of “gross” and “abusive” treatment of the cast and crew. Mr. Whedon has disputed some of Mr. Fisher’s accusations, and said his ex-wife’s 2017 account included “inaccuracies” and “misrepresentations.”On Wednesday, Ms. Carpenter released a statement in support of Mr. Fisher, in which she said Mr. Whedon harassed her while she was pregnant and fired her after she gave birth in 2003.“Joss Whedon abused his power on numerous occasions while working together on the sets of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel,” she said in the post, hashtagged #istandwithRayFisher. The post set off a new accounting for longtime fans of Mr. Whedon’s work, and some of the people who helped him create it.Over the past week, many of the actors who starred on “Buffy,” including Sarah Michelle Gellar, who played Buffy Summers, have expressed solidarity with Ms. Carpenter and distanced themselves from Mr. Whedon. The actress Michelle Trachtenberg, who played Buffy’s younger sister, Dawn, alleged on Instagram on Thursday that Mr. Whedon was not allowed to be alone with her.“I would like to validate what the women of ‘Buffy’ are saying and support them in telling their story,” Marti Noxon, one of the show’s producers and longtime writers, said on Twitter. Jose Molina, a writer who worked on Mr. Whedon’s show “Firefly,” called him “casually cruel.”A representative for Mr. Whedon declined to comment.Charisma Carpenter, seen here in 2019, played Cordelia on “Buffy” and “Angel.”Credit…Nina Prommer/EPA, via ShutterstockThrough “Buffy,” Mr. Whedon sparked a universe that inspired scholarly articles and books, countless online groups that still dissect plotlines and characters more than 17 years after the final episode aired, and legions of fans who connected deeply with a teenage girl forced to fight unimaginable horrors.“Many people came out and said that ‘Buffy’ saved their lives,” said Alyson Buckman, a professor at California State University, Sacramento, and member of the Whedon Studies Association, who surveyed fans of the show for an upcoming book. “It was incredibly meaningful for them. It taught them to stand up for themselves. It taught them that they could go on.”She added: “Is that all ruined by one man?”Welcome to the HellmouthIn March 1997, “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” premiered on the WB, then a fledgling cable network, and was quickly praised as a smart and campy series about a teenage girl and her friends fighting the forces of evil.The show was full of clever metaphors — Buffy lived in a California town that sits on a hellmouth, a place where vampires and monsters converge and a sly comparison to the pains of adolescence. Writers like Ms. Noxon and Jane Espenson developed rich plotlines and provided the actors with snappy dialogue that fascinated linguists. The characters struggled with evil boyfriends, their own sexuality and the death of a parent in ways that fans found cathartic.“The show was really a lifeline for me at the time because I didn’t have community,” said Jen Malkowski, a film and media studies professor at Smith College, who identifies as queer and trans nonbinary and began watching the show in high school.“I was working with my sexuality, coming to terms with coming out,” said Professor Malkowski, who uses they and them pronouns. “Buffy was a huge source of comfort for me.”Mr. Whedon’s fame grew, and he went on to direct and write myriad other films and television series, including the wildly popular “Avengers” and one of its sequels, “Avengers: Age of Ultron.” In 2013, the human rights group Equality Now honored him as a champion of storytelling who fought for gender equality.“Buffy was such a powerful show not just because it was about girl power, but also because it was about women’s voices,” said Jodi Eichler-Levine, a professor at Lehigh University who described herself as “obsessed” with the show in graduate school.“Hearing just how profoundly the voices of women in the cast were ignored cuts deep,” she said.Sarah Michelle Gellar, who played Buffy Summers, said she was proud of the role, but does not want to be forever associated with Joss Whedon. Credit…WB‘The story is not just Joss Whedon’s’In pop culture and beyond, there’s a long history of fans working through how to separate their art from its creator or stars. And for years, many fans have had to compartmentalize their love for “Buffy” as more accusations swirled against Mr. Whedon and multiple viewings of the show revealed aspects of it that had not aged well.Nat Brehmer, a freelance writer in Apopka, Fla., described on Twitter how he thought of Mr. Whedon as “some kind of god” when he first watched the show in high school. Episodes like one about a student who feels so unseen by her classmates that she literally becomes invisible helped him cope with the anxieties he felt as a teenager.Over the years, Mr. Brehmer said he has had to contend with some troubling remnants of the show’s legacy, like its treatment of minority characters and its depiction of sexual assault.The latest controversy surrounding Mr. Whedon is a reminder of the danger of idolization, Mr. Brehmer said. But he said that if he has children, he will watch “Buffy” with them.“Buffy is still my favorite show of all time,” he said. “Probably, by and large, one of my favorite stories ever told.”“Buffy” fans know that the “story is not just Joss Whedon’s,” said Kristin Russo, a co-host on the podcast, “Buffering the Vampire Slayer.” She compared the loyalty of fans to the show to that of fans of Harry Potter, who have distanced themselves from J.K. Rowling and transphobic comments she has made, while still embracing the books.“It’s the fandom claiming it back,” Ms. Russo said. “I don’t think that anyone would think that Buffy Summers belongs to any one person.”Professor Malkowski said boycotting “Buffy” and other shows Mr. Whedon created would also obscure the legacy of the other writers, producers and actors who worked on those series.“I want to hold on to Marti Noxon and Jane Espenson and Charisma Carpenter,” they said. “To me, it’s more important to keep what’s of value than to cancel what has been revealed to be troubling.”But in case the new allegations compel networks and streaming services to stop playing old episodes of Mr. Whedon’s shows, Professor Malkowski is ready:“I will never let go of my Buffy DVDs.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More