Who knew that the creator of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" had feminist leanings?! That appears to be the reaction of conservatives online to Planned Parenthood rolling out a fundraising partnership with Joss Whedon, best known these days for writing and directing "The Avengers" and "Avengers: Age of Ultron."
Love Joss Whedon? Want him to make a donation in your name? Start a monthly donation to PP & he'll chip in $50. https://t.co/uCBChp5IEW
— Planned Parenthood (@PPact) December 26, 2015
This announcement got the usual trickle of angry right wingers, mostly men, hollering stuff about "baby-killers."
Things kicked into high gear when Twitchy decided to highlight the tweet. Twitchy, a site started by Michelle Malkin, portrays itself as a news site, but in reality, its main purpose is harnessing the masses of bitter, angry right wingers online and turning them into an army of social media flying monkeys. Twitchy picks the targets and aims the angry, grammar-challenged masses like a firehose, attempting to silence and torment liberal figures into silence through an astounding torrent of abuse.
Whedon himself isn't on Twitter — he considers it a distraction from writing — so the villainous Twitchy masses are simply tweeting abuse at the Planned Parenthood account and under the hashtag #josswhedon, in clear hopes that he sees it and gets intimidated anyway.
This is hardly the first time that Twitchy has tried to terrify supporters of Planned Parenthood in such a manner. Back in October, for instance, they went after the Austin City Council for supporting the reproductive health organization, and despite all the claims about "baby-killing," the headline was a reminder that the right wing's objections to the organization are rooted in hysteria over other people's private sexual choices.
"Friends with benefits" being a popular term for a casual sex partner, which is exactly the sort of thing that will be made more dangerous if conservatives succeed in their mission to wipe out easy access to contraception, STI prevention and abortion services.
The outrage over this is doubly ridiculous because Whedon has never, not once, hidden his feminist and progressive inclinations. He rose to fame with his TV show "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," which was explicitly meant as a subversive feminist rewriting of many standard horror and fantasy tropes that cast young women as nothing more than victims or damsels in need of rescuing. "Buffy" was never a big hit, but it was a cult hit and clearly the forerunner to the current crush of feminist heroes we're seeing in everything from "Mad Max" to "Star Wars."
Of course, it all makes you wonder what Whedon's stories would look like if he's written them to suit a more conservative vision of the world, the kind of world that his current detractors would envision as ideal.
"Buffy the Vampire Slayer": Buffy's career as a Slayer goes well until season two, when she loses her virginity to her vampire boyfriend Angel and immediately becomes pregnant with his vampire spawn, because there's no contraception services available to teenagers in Sunnydale. Forced to go through with giving birth to the evil undead, Buffy has to retire from her Slayer duties, because killing vampires is hard to do when you're pregnant and/or carting around a newborn. Subsequently, vampires overrun the city, killing everyone. But that's what they have coming for letting a woman be the savior of humanity against the forces of evil, a job that should clearly be reserved for men.
"Firefly": Attempts to build a human colony in outer space are derailed when space syphilis wipes out 90% of the human population. They may have spaceships, terraforming technologies and space age medical care, but no one could find a condom in the 26th century, where it was decided contraception services had to be shut down lest anyone be accused of "baby-killing."
"The Avengers": Earth is decimated by an alien invasion. Black Widow had the capacity to help shut down the wormhole that the evil aliens were entering Earth's atmosphere through, but because she decided at the beginning of the film to "opt out" by marrying Steve Rogers and becoming a housewife instead of having a high-powered career as an Avenger, she simply wasn't on hand to save the world.
"Dollhouse": A Republican-dominated Congress passes a law legalizing Dollhouses, on the grounds that economic freedom depends on allowing capitalist forces to purchase human beings, wipe their minds, and use their bodies however they want. Labor organizations, citing the 13th amendment that bans slavery, take the case to the Supreme Court, where Justice John Roberts sides with the Republicans, arguing that since mind-wiped indentured workers don't know they are enslaved, you cannot reasonably call it "slavery".
"Avengers: Age of Ultron": After discovering that the fictional country of Sovokia is 80% Muslim and that anti-American sentiment is being openly expressed in the streets, the U.S. government declares the country terrorist-sympathizers and forbids the Avengers from interfering with Ultron's plot to blow the entire place up. Earth is wiped out as Ultron turns Sovokia into a bomb meant to wipe out the entire planet.
"Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D": President Donald Trump replaces the Department of Homeland Security with Hydra, declaring the evil fascist organization to be the only intelligence agency that shows "strength" and will make America a country that knows how to "win." Most of the cast of the show is either executed on the spot or thrown into black cells, never to be seen again. A program to round up Inhumans and put them in detention centers is started and Daisy is killed fighting with the Inhuman resistance.
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