Help please; I have to give a talk on Whedon by Darwi

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Help please; I have to give a talk on Whedon

POSTED BY: DARWI
UPDATED: Tuesday, July 29, 2008 06:19
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Tuesday, July 29, 2008 1:18 AM

I was hoping that some of the more fanatical than me Whedon fans out there could help me;

In a week I have to give a Powerpoint talk on the 'Whedonverse' to a group of work-mates at a wine tasting (it's a regular social get together where we take it in turns giving a talk on something of interest).

Anyway... as part of the talk I want to concentrate on the dialogue. Can anybody suggest a few 20 second clips that best illustrate Whedon's work - and in particular the Western / Chinese flavour of Firefly.

Just the basics as most of the audience will probably not have seen Firefly before (shame on them).

Thanks in advance.

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Tuesday, July 29, 2008 4:25 AM

MICJWELCH

I absolutely loved what Joss said during the strike about why he does what he does. You should check it out. http://whedonesque.com/comments/14650

"It’s frickin’ great." - Nathan Fillion

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Tuesday, July 29, 2008 5:47 AM

MANWITHPEZ

Important people don't do field work.

You should totally use a clip from the pilot episode of Firefly when Simon and Mal are facing off over whether or not Mal should turn them over, and Simon's saying he won't help Kaylee unless they turn the ship around...

I love the show as a whole, but the tension and camerawork in that scene are totally f'n awesome! And representative of how cool Firefly really is. Without it being a funny scene, I mean.

Kaylee: "What's so damn important about being proper? It don't mean nothing out here in the black."
Simon: "It means more out here. It's all I have..."

http://manwithpez.livejournal.com

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Tuesday, July 29, 2008 5:52 AM

WYTCHCROFT

Quote:

Originally posted by Darwi:
I was hoping that some of the more fanatical than me Whedon fans out there could help me;

In a week I have to give a Powerpoint talk on the 'Whedonverse' to a group of work-mates at a wine tasting (it's a regular social get together where we take it in turns giving a talk on something of interest).

Anyway... as part of the talk I want to concentrate on the dialogue. Can anybody suggest a few 20 second clips that best illustrate Whedon's work - and in particular the Western / Chinese flavour of Firefly.

Just the basics as most of the audience will probably not have seen Firefly before (shame on them).

Whedon describes his style of dialogue as "twisting the english language till it cries out in pain" -
there are two obvious ways he does that - Buffy is notorious now for adding (e)Y to words as in Faith; "It's no fun if you're all repenty"
Buffy season 7 - Bad Girls (i think).

Firefly's least subtle language marker is 'some'
as in 'truthsome'for example.
And there are times when adjectives become verbs - which was extremely common in Buffy.

Unlike Buffy though - the dialogue patterns vary from character to character, because they are from more diverse background than the kids of sunnydale high.

There is also a gap between rim speak (aint*, do what now? etc) and core speak "that's not right" would be Simon, inara or Book. Kaylee would say "T'aint right". Some charatcers e.g Wash mix the two and come closest to the valley speak of Buff.

Firefly's language often gets patently surreal - and in fact that's mainly Mal;
"Morbid and Creepying", Bushwhacked.
"Were there monkeys - some terrifying space monkeys",BDM
"I swear by my pretty floral bonnet i will end you." OMR
Note the use of 'End' instead of kill - it adds an anachronistic western flavour - but it's invented language.

Rather than clips - i would pick a sequence - the opening of Our Mrs Reynolds has everything.
Or the confrontation in the training house between Mal and the Operative - their language is sharply contrasted.

As for the chinese - Joss has said that he wanted people to feel that any character in the verse could drop into chinese with ease. Two characters who show this are:

1) River, in SAFE her outburst of chinese near the beginning for example is unexpected to the viewer but completely in character. Another sequence would be the SAFE flashback where the CORE-speak of the Tam family again slips into unselfconscious Chinese. So the use of chinese does not depend on background.

2) Wash - because he just swears so nicely.

Lastly and most famously - the use of language to avoid the censors, the Chinese is unbelievably crude and of course ruttin is used for f--king and gorram for goddamn.

Buffy got away wth a similar trick with Spke whose use of 'offensive' British words like bugger, bolloks, bloody, wanker and others caused havok for the UK transmission but sailed entirely over the heads of american networks apparently.

Hope this helps - hope you don't feel patronised.
good luck!

*Nandi in H.O.G. complains about having to learn to say aint after moving from the core.

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Tuesday, July 29, 2008 6:19 AM

RALLEM

You might want to mention some of the negative sides to the Whedonverse according to the "main stream," such as how the "main stream" says that Whedon while proclaiming strong woman tends to stereotypes them as all combat specialists, but then you could acknowledge this perspective by listing a few of the women who are combat specialists in Whedonverse, and then highlight women like Kaylee who is considered strong but not a combat specialist. By acknowledging an opponent’s view points you allow a door for them to see your perspective as you later on destroy their views. After illustrating how Kaylee is different from the combat specialists which people accuse Joss of stereotyping women as, you could then go into the backgrounds of such women like Zoe, River, and Buffy and show how they became who they are. In Zoe’s case she fought a war of independence and had to be the most disciplined soldier so that she and her compatriots could survive, and that discipline stuck with her, with River she was a victim of a government who wished to turn her into a secret weapon against her will, and with Buffy you could mention that she was a care free cheerleader or what ever she did before the vampires in her world began acting up and was forced to combat them. I am not very knowledgeable in any of the Joss Whedon shows besides Firefly because I am not a fan of vampires. You will want to do some research on what are the “main stream” views of Joss Whedon’s works so you can acknowledge them and then crush them. Good luck.

http://swyzzlestyx.com/index.html

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