John Ostrander: Should This Man Be Considered A Role Model?
“I am myself indifferent honest, but yet I could accuse me of such things that it were better my mother had not borne me.”
—Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 1
Joss Whedon created Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and is credited with writing strong female roles and espousing feminist ideals – but not by his ex-wife, Kai Cole, who on the blog The Wrap accused him of being a serial cheater during their marriage and was a “hypocrite preaching feminist ideals.” This has led to a number of (now ex) fans venting their anger and feelings of betrayal.
Is it true? I dunno. I don’t know Whedon and Cole personally. Could she be lying? Possibly. Could he be an asshole? Possibly. It’s not the point of this column, however. The question I want to consider is – should Whedon, or any artist or celebrity, be considered a role model?
A role model is someone who is held up as an example to be emulated. They can come from any walk of life; indeed, they don’t have to be living or real. Isn’t Superman a role model? Sherlock Holmes? Wonder Woman?
Barack Obama is a role model to many, although probably not to those who think of Donald Trump as a role model (shudder).
Charles Barkley once famously said, “I’m not a role model… Just because I dunk a basketball doesn’t mean I should raise your kids.” He caught a lot of flak for that at the time but I tend to agree. The work can and must exist apart from its creator. Edgar Allan Poe was a drug addict. Picasso had multiple mistresses. Wonder Woman’s creator, William Moulton Marston, lived with both his wife and a lover in the same house. Bill Cosby was a role model and look at how that turned out.
Who should be role models? Parents, siblings, family, teachers – anyone who has a direct and actual effect on the child’s life.
I once had my character GrimJack shoot a character in the back, an act that offended some fans including some that were my friends. My defense was that I never said Gaunt was a role model. He wasn’t; he was an anti-hero from the get-go.
Who the creator is goes into the work but, if it has substance, the work can and must stand apart from the creator. The two ultimately must be judged separately.
As Barkley’s quote above suggests, many who are called role models never sought that job. Perhaps it just comes with the territory. Barkley, like others, made his name into a “brand”; he made the Nike commercial where he gave that quote because it was perceived that he had influence with the buying public. Perhaps being a role model is part of the price for the individual.
Maybe the complaint with Whedon is that he sought to be seen as a feminist. He gave a speech to a women’s rights group, Equality Now, on receiving an award from them, and in it he noted that reporters would ask him why he insisted on writing “strong female characters”. He would reply, “Why aren’t you asking a hundred other guys why they don’t write strong women characters? I believe that what I’m doing should not be remarked upon, let alone honored.”
Given how he treated his wife, does that make him a hypocrite? Or could he be sincere in his feelings even while he is cheating? Isn’t what he said still true? Does it have to be all one thing or the other? In characters that I write, I look for opposites because that’s where I find true character lies.
As I said, I don’t know Whedon or Ms. Cole personally. Based on what she has said, will I stop going to see his films or enjoy Buffy or Firefly? No. The work is the work and stands on its own.
Even if the creator is a SOB.
Struggling man succeeds, becomes rich and powerful and famous. Man cheats on wife while spewing words about feminism and equality and publicly praising wife. Ex-wife chooses to feel herself empowered by publicly detailing events that happened while married to ex-husband. Ex-husband, through a spokesperson, says that allegations are misrepresented.
Old story.
Speaking of that Grimjack scenario, John, do you remember the MAGNUM, P.I. episode, “Did You See The Sun Rise?,” the third season premiere of the series?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7vW1oEKP1k
One of Magnum’s friends has been killed by a car-bomb meant for Magnum; the last thing he said before starting the car was a suggestion that he, Magnum, and a third person with them drive up to a lookout point and watch the sunrise.
At the end of the episode Magnum contrived to be alone with the killer, a Soviet agent known as “Ivan.” After a mildly civilized discussion Ivan, who has diplomatic immunity and is on his way out of the country, walks away, saying, “I know you, Thomas. I know you better than your mother…you would never shoot an unarmed man…
Magnum: Ivan.
Ivan: Yes?
Magnum: Did you see the sunrise this morning?
Ivan: (a bit puzzled) Yes, why?
And Thomas Magnum, the hero of a TV detective show in 1982, when heroes still didn’t do morally questionable things on television, turns around with something wrong with his eyes, and fires a single shot, with the episode ending on a freeze-frame of the muzzle flash.
I loved Magnum p.i. I watched it with my grandma every week. When I saw that episode i was mad. I asked my grandma why he did that. She said every day is a choice between right and wrong. Sometimes you do a wrong thing for the right reasons. It was tough to get through my head but she was right.
This is some bull. Saying you don’t deserve an award is customary false modesty. If he really didn’t think he should be honored, he wouldn’t have accepted the award. He wouldn’t have given a pompous speech about how English speakers should replace the word “feminist” with “genderist” so men and women who like to “dress pretty” can feel more comfortable. He is pretty far from “indifferent honest”, but he certainly shares much of the misogyny of Hamlet in the rest of the Nunnery scene.
“Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself. I am large, I contain multitudes.” — Walt Whitman
Like John, I cannot know the minds of either Joss or Kai. I can, however, speculate that Joss could know the difference between what he said and what he did, and accept that, while he fell short of his own standard, he likely still believed what he said to be utterly true. This is not to say that he should be held blameless; only that he might have felt the need to reiterate a truth that, if he fell short in practice, might be wise to make clear for others before they might face such a situation.
I haven’t been following this much, but can one not be a feminist (or not… a genderist? anti-genderist…?) and cheat on your spouse? I am not defending it but can’t you think of them still as equal to you as a sex/gender but also be a cheat? Whose to say if he was with a man (presumably he isn’t a misandrist) he wouldn’t also cheat.
Couldn’t a bisexual, for instance, for instance cheat on both men and women? I am not advocating cheating or defending having affairs I’m just not sure there is a correlation between marital fidelity and feminism and marital infidelity and sexism. I have known many men who are very sexist and yet are married and don’t cheat on their wives, so the opposite seems conceivable.
As I say I haven’t been reading up on this so there could be more to it; for all I know he could be being accused of slapping women around and chucking cans at them because he thinks women are the “weaker sex” or that it is man’s right to take women cos’ they are objects or something. The way people have been describing it they have only been focusing on the affairs aspect.
I hope people don’t think I am saying cheating is right (I have nothing against mutual open relationships if that is a couple’s bag though), just musing.