Joss and biological parents. (There shall be spoilers for everything, I suspect). by AgentRouka

FIREFLY EPISODE DISCUSSIONS

Joss and biological parents. (There shall be spoilers for everything, I suspect).

POSTED BY: AGENTROUKA
UPDATED: Tuesday, July 3, 2007 04:30
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Monday, June 11, 2007 5:40 AM

So.

Biological parents, in particular fathers, don't play much of a role in the Jossverse and generally a not positive one.

Buffy's father was absent while her mother did all the work but didn't really understand/support her for the longest time. She had issues.

Mal's father is absent, while his mother did all the work. He has issues with men.

Xanders parents are bad.

The Tam parents are bad.

Cordelia's parents are bad.

Willow, Kaylee and Fred (methinks?) - the happy and gentle characters - had good parents but we are rarely if ever shown them as having an actual role in their children's lives.

Angel as a father was sweet for a while but it quickly fell spectacularly apart, due to a threat Wes perceived from father to son.

What's the deal?

I get that Joss's point is that family is not determined by blood, but so far it seems that blood relation actually prevents family (or is not worth showing as working out on screen), with the big exception of Simon and River.

Similarly to all romantic relationships not working out long-term, due to different reasons, this seems kind of skewed.

Is it just me, or is this portrayel too one-sided, too black/white, because it denies the fact that things can be good?

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Monday, June 11, 2007 5:55 AM

THESOMNAMBULIST

Hello again Agent Rouka.

I have to say I always find the representatioin of family in TV/Cinema a little one sided too. It's become a kind of short-hand in relaying character traits.

I remember hearing a while back that there were something like four disney films that actually presented a non fractured family unit. Quite interesting really.

However I think it is in most cases just more interesting to present your 'dark and broody' hero/heroine in this manner. It gives them the necessary gravitas for enigma.

I've written a script with a coupe of friends and I laid down one character quirk that I wanted in. That being that the heroine comes from a big family and they all get along just fine.

Interesting observation.

www.cirqus.com

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Monday, June 11, 2007 6:01 AM

DAVESHAYNE

Quote:
Originally posted by AgentRouka:
Is it just me, or is this portrayel too one-sided, too black/white, because it denies the fact that things can be good?

Joss likes drama. Nice well adjusted stable relationships aren't dramatic. That or Joss has daddy issues take your pick.

I will quibble a bit. I don't think Cordy's parents were ever bad per se. Perhaps distant (and of course criminally stupid regarding the tax code) but not actively harmful to their child that I can see.

David

"Not completely as well as the series of Firefly..." - From a review of Serenity at amazon.de

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Monday, June 11, 2007 6:13 AM

AGENTROUKA

Quote:
Originally posted by daveshayne:

Joss likes drama. Nice well adjusted stable relationships aren't dramatic. That or Joss has daddy issues take your pick.

They could be, though. Joss doesn't even try to examine them, which I find lazy, so I'd lean toward the latter. *g*

Quote:

I will quibble a bit. I don't think Cordy's parents were ever bad per se. Perhaps distant (and of course criminally stupid regarding the tax code) but not actively harmful to their child that I can see.

I'll grant you that, but considering the role that parents usually play in the lives of their children, the marked absence of feeling we usually get shown - in particular from the Buffyverse characters - is pretty telling. Children being this overtly independent for their age, with little emotional attachment seems more bad than neutral. Parents aren't supposed to be neutral factors, anyway.

They all seem to be played as little adults with no parental supervision at all, which helps in keeping thing glamorous and adventurous, but also makes them all seem orphaned, in a way.

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Monday, June 11, 2007 6:21 AM

AGENTROUKA

Quote:
Originally posted by TheSomnambulist:
Hello again Agent Rouka.

Hello again, TheSomnabulist. *g*

Quote:

I remember hearing a while back that there were something like four disney films that actually presented a non fractured family unit. Quite interesting really.

Oh God, yes, the Disney thing. Mothers = must die!

I understand that fractured families are big because lots of families fracture or have little cuts and tears in them. Divorce rates going up made that was/is a huge thing for many children to deal with.

Fairytales also tend to have broken families: stepmothers, sibling rivalry, bad fathers. These things help people deal with trauma that really is and was experienced.

But in the name of all things, it is not the only thing in the world! Balance, people! The trauma can't be eliminated by eliminating parents all together! *ahem* Especially if stable families are implied as existing yet never shown, like a myth. How about showing that even with flaws something might not be as broken as it seems? That'd be a step away from the teenangst toward adult rationality. Parents are people, too, and most aren't so bad in spite of their mistakes.

Sorry 'bout the rant.

Quote:

I've written a script with a coupe of friends and I laid down one character quirk that I wanted in. That being that the heroine comes from a big family and they all get along just fine.

Nifty! That certainly does sound refreshing. :)

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Monday, June 11, 2007 7:22 AM

DAVESHAYNE

Quote:
Originally posted by AgentRouka:
I'll grant you that, but considering the role that parents usually play in the lives of their children, the marked absence of feeling we usually get shown - in particular from the Buffyverse characters - is pretty telling.

Well that's not just a Joss thing. In general TV shows (and movies) that center around child protagonists downplay the roles of adults. Usually reserving them for the bad guy roles or portraying them as oblivious to what's really going on. See "Home Alone", "Ferris Bueller's Day Off", "Fast Times At Ridgemont High", "The Breakfast Club", etc.

David

"Not completely as well as the series of Firefly..." - From a review of Serenity at amazon.de

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Monday, June 11, 2007 7:51 AM

AGENTROUKA

Quote:
Originally posted by daveshayne:

Well that's not just a Joss thing. In general TV shows (and movies) that center around child protagonists downplay the roles of adults. Usually reserving them for the bad guy roles or portraying them as oblivious to what's really going on. See "Home Alone", "Ferris Bueller's Day Off", "Fast Times At Ridgemont High", "The Breakfast Club", etc.

Aren't all of those movies? Movies have different time constrictions than tv shows.

On a tv show, that's not strictly comedic but focused on teenaged characters, where relationships are followed over a longer course of time, are parents normally ignored at the level that Joss does it?

Of the top of my head, I can think of "Dawson's Creek" (*wince* I didn't watch it for long, mind!) and parents did play a role.

"My So Called Life" involved the parents a lot.

I'm obviously lacking some reference material here, but I can't remember a show that would take itself seriously and not at least show parents interacting with their teenaged main characters. Do you have examples?

Adult shows, as well, tend to consider parent relationships as a part of characters' lives, even if they are (stereotypically) portrayed as problematic. The X Files, Bones, The Pretender (again *wince*), Ally McBeal, Six Feet Under are some examples I can come up with.

I doubt that most shows exclude parents in the way that Joss does.

It's a big equalizer. If no one has parents, everyone's essentially, the same age. Unless they're the caretaker/teacher character, i.e. Giles or Book.
It all seems like a college setting to me, come to think of it. An eternal perpetuation of a place where you're far from parental supervision and all in a similar situation, unable to move on until you complete this stage in life. Nothing to do but find yourself through trials and tribulations, with the help of adult but not related teacher figures.

He pulls it in early with the Buffy kids and stretches it out later into the lives of the Angel team, where their mission keeps them from becoming settled and solid. On Firefly, the crew can't lead "normal" lives because of their outlaw status, as well.

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Monday, June 11, 2007 8:31 AM

DAVESHAYNE

Quote:
Originally posted by AgentRouka:
I'm obviously lacking some reference material here, but I can't remember a show that would take itself seriously and not at least show parents interacting with their teenaged main characters. Do you have examples?

"Saved By The Bell" and "Party Of Five" come to mind. Or really just about any TV show about teens for teens.

David

"Not completely as well as the series of Firefly..." - From a review of Serenity at amazon.de

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Monday, June 11, 2007 8:49 AM

AGENTROUKA

Quote:
Originally posted by daveshayne:
"Saved By The Bell" and "Party Of Five" come to mind. Or really just about any TV show about teens for teens.

"Saved By The Bell" wasn't primarily serious, if I recall, and "Party of Five" had a legitimate reason for the absence of the parents: they were dead.

The Buffyverse parents aren't dead. They are just played as absent and emotionally irrelevant, with the exception of Buffy's mother.

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Wednesday, June 13, 2007 12:25 PM

PAINTITBLACK

I agree that Joss's series certainly highlight the lack of parental support and actually make a point of having heroes or heroines who have just one strong parent or none at all.

The orphan theme is common in myths and children's stories but is relatively rare in the usual teenage fare on television.

I think that Joss likes to highlight the idea of family as a "made" unit rather than something that you are born into.
This allows the characters to be more independent and courageous and highlights the fact that their friends play a vital role in their lives.

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Sunday, June 17, 2007 12:55 PM

OPTIMUS1998

well i do seem to remember from a biography of joss, that he grew up in NY with his mom, and his dad(and his dad) was a TV writer in LA.

so my vote is with daddy issues...

-------------------------------------------------
Nothing like filming a major motion picture to make you feel better about your show being cancelled.
- Nathan Fillion
REDEMPTION!
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Well played Clerks...
- Leonardo Leonardo(Clerks Cartoon)

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Sunday, June 17, 2007 2:43 PM

REGINAROADIE

Yeah, Joss so obviously has daddy issues. It's this, the blanket existentialism and the sometimes preachy feminism that, in my mind anyways, keeps Joss from being a truly great writer. Yes he can create fully functioning worlds, populate them with vibrant characters, tell great stories in new ways and all with a sense of humor. But making the parents more demonic than the demons you have your good guys fight is just lazy psychological purging. It's tantamount to pop starlets whining about their daddies on their latest albums.

I second the statement about Cordelia's folks. Never saw them, so we don't know anything about them. All we know was that Dad didn't pay taxes so she's no longer rich.

And in regards to the elder Tams, maybe the early cancellation of the series helped preserve them in mystery. Because if the show did continue, and Joss brought them back, then he would have ruined them by making them the standard bad parents like he's done before. He wouldn't have them as complex as say Noah Bennett on HEROES. But now that we've only seen them in three scenes in one ep, theres enough ambiguity for the fans to create their own interpretations.

As per families in other series, I guess it depends on your own personal background and familial life that shapes wheter you're inclined to shows about families. If you're from a split home and had a group of friends that's more of a family, then you'd be inclined more towards Joss' shows than your average sci-fi geek. But if you have a strong familial background, where you still have regular contact with your family and there is definite love between all of them no matter how fucked up they are, then you'd be more inclined towards shows that focus on families.

Like I would rate SIX FFET UNDER way above anything Joss has done because Alan Ball knows that no matter how fucked up a family is and how narcissistic the individual members can be at times, there still is a bond between them that even in death cannot be broken. Just listen to Nate's monologue at the funeral in the pilot episode and you know that even if he wasn't on the best terms with Nathanial Sr., he still loved him. "You can put make-up on him and prop him up in the slumber room, but the fact of the matter remains that the only father we're ever going to have, is gone. And that's sucks. But it's a goddamn fact of life...Well I intend to honor the old bastard by show the world how fucked up and shitty I feel that he's dead. GODDAMN IT!!!" Joss would go into anaphalactic shock if her were to ever write anything akin to that.

And I guess another reason I'm more into shows like HEROES and DOCTOR WHO is that even though these characters are on incredible journeys, they still have a family to lean on for support. Even with Claire's healing power, she would not have surivved the first season without Mr. Bennett and at the very end her real father Nathan stepping up to do what's right. And Rose checking in on her family once in a while over the first two years and actually going back in time to try to save her father made the show all the more powerful.

Episodes like "Company Man", "Father's Day" and the character of Keith Mars would never have existed if Joss was in charge. There's no way he could have written them, is all I'm gonna say.

**************************************************
"And it starts with a sentence that might last a lifetime, or it all might just go down in flames. If I let you know me, then why would you want me? Each day I don't is a shame. Each day I don't is a great shame."

Loudon Wainwright III - "Strange Weirdos" off the "Knocked Up" soundtrack

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Tuesday, June 19, 2007 7:05 PM

REGINAROADIE

bump because this is too good a thread to die

**************************************************
"And it starts with a sentence that might last a lifetime, or it all might just go down in flames. If I let you know me, then why would you want me? Each day I don't is a shame. Each day I don't is a great shame."

Loudon Wainwright III - "Strange Weirdos" off the "Knocked Up" soundtrack

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Tuesday, June 19, 2007 8:05 PM

KAYNA

I love my captain

These comment about Joss having daddy issues may be true but I don't think it really matters. I love his shows for what they are just I love some of the other shows that have been mentioned here (and I liked Pretender) for being what they are. I like a little variety in my viewing and you get that from different folks making the shows. AS to the fact that he come back to these issues regularly, it's not like he's the only writer that does that. What's the saying? "Write what you know"? Many writers have recuring themes that are influenced by thier personal histories. Stephen King, off the top of my head. Alchoholics and writers show up in most of his stories. And more recently, people being hit by cars. These are all things he knows and they are all great things to mine stories out of.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Op: You're fighting a war you've already lost.
Mal: Yeah, well I'm known for that.

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Tuesday, June 19, 2007 8:40 PM

WTE

I think it's pretty unfair to assume Joss has daddy issues, especially since everything I've seen him say about his father has been thoroughly and inarguably positive. Sure, he's not going to break down mid-interview and admit he felt abandoned or whatever, but it seems if he had issues with his father he wouldn't go out of his way on occasion to compliment him. I'm referring specifically to a time when an interviewer asked about the influence of his mother on his work, and Joss, after explaining his mother's influence, went on to describe his dad as downright magnanimous. I just don't see him doing that if he had issues with the guy.

Frankly, I think it's just a matter of families not really fitting in with his sort of work. With Buffy, the focus of the show is on the scoobies. It's about their relationships, and if all of sudden we have to shoehorn into the series Cordelia's parents, and Willow's parents, and Oz's parents, and Giles's parents, and Faith's parents (though that could be interesting...), and so on, we're losing character development from our headliners just to make the statement that not all families are bad. It's unnecessary; we know all families aren't bad. This isn't something I need a show to go out of its way to demonstrate. Yes, a program about a healthy family can be interesting, but if a show's focus isn't on the biological family, the subject shouldn't be forced in there to cover the, "But families are okay!" ground.

As for Angel and Firefly, all I can really say is that the characters in these shows are adults. Parents aren't going to play as large a role in the lives of adults, in particular adults with fairly busy lives or--in the case of Firefly--lives that require being unreachable for long, long periods of time. Joss's introduction for Safe in the companion had one of my favorite descriptions of a person ever: "...and then, over the course of a series of flashbacks, to have him realize, as he has always sort of known, that his father is genial because everything is going his way. When the chips are down, he's nobody, and Simon has always been the only person there to look after his sister." The reason I liked it is irrelevant (it was because this was the most realistic personality for a minor, secondary character I'd ever read). I think what it really shows us is, yes, his father's not a great guy, but he's not a great guy because by showing his faults, we see Simon's strengths. One character's weaknesses inform another's virtues.

That's not to say it wouldn't be nice to see Joss explore a healthy nuclear family, given his talent for character development and so on. But none of his shows would have allowed for that sort of exploration without seeming forced and lame. So, I have to come up on the side of, "It'd be nice, but I can understand why not." ...heh, that's not a very strong position at all.

Sorry for the essay.

EDIT: The interview to which I referred is here: http://movies.ign.com/articles/425/425492p1.html .

I had another, even more complimentary quote in my head, but this will serve my purposes fine (especially relevant material is bolded):

IGN FILMFORCE: In the past, you've described yourself as a bit of a TV snob, as a child.

JOSS WHEDON: That's true.

IGNFF: Was that a reaction against your family's legacy, or just the environment you were in?

WHEDON: It was more the environment I was in. When my parents divorced, I lived with my mother. My mother had been with a TV writer for 30 years, with a comedy writer, and although my parents were good friends after they divorced and got along, she wasn't exactly watching either sitcoms or football after my father left. She really was more into the Masterpiece Theater of it, and I kind of just followed in her footsteps – except for the part where she watched the news, which I didn't. It was depressing. It was really my mother's influence... a lot of stuff I do trace back to her. I also thought that, quite frankly, I loved when my father was working on The Electric Company when I younger ... I liked the shows he did, but I never thought they were as funny as he was. In my mind, I thought that he was running them, because he'd run The Electric Company. I don't think he was, but it felt like Alice, Benson, and even Golden Girls – which I think was hilarious and was a classic – this is the wittiest man I'd ever met, and all of his friends were extraordinary, and the sitcoms were never quite the same as my father.

IGNFF: Did you blame the sitcoms as a form, for somehow watering down your father?

WHEDON: I think to an extent, yeah. And also just classic teenage rebellion. Rebellion and snobbery were both involved. But also that thing of, "I know what my father's capable of, and I don't think Alice is up to his level." So there was a little bit of that, too.

As far as I'm concerned, this also invalidates the theory that, though he may have loved his father, all the time his dad spent in LA was an issue for Joss. He seems to have enjoyed the idea of his father making TV, even if it wasn't on par with his expectations.

All this, just to say, I don't think Joss has daddy issues :p

HONKS

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Wednesday, June 20, 2007 5:47 AM

KAYNA

I love my captain

Nice post WTE. See I don't actually know much about Joss's life outside of TV. I didn't know all that about his mother and father. Very nice defence of Joss. Very informative.

As to whether or not he has daddy issues, I still don't think it's all that important. I love his shows regardless.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Op: You're fighting a war you've already lost.
Mal: Yeah, well I'm known for that.

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Monday, June 25, 2007 10:41 AM

INDIGOSTARBLASTER

Hmm. Generally, it seems to me that happy relationships, while they are being happy, just don't make for gripping storytelling.

The teens in the Buffyverse were way more emancipated than I was as a teen, of course, but even for me, if I think back on my teenage years, I think about my life at high school, with my friends, and the occasional fight or conflict I had with my parents. I don't think about the almost unbroken line of pleasant family dinners I had through all those years, which means those moments wouldn't make it into a drama about my teenage years, either. It just makes sense to me that the Buffy episodes would only have the occasional glimpse of conflict with a Scooby parent, and not show the fact that Buffy went to visit her dad in LA for a really nice weekend every month, or whatever (up until he had an affair with his secretary and disappeared off the face of the earth, anyway).

As for Firefly, I agree with the post-ers that pointed out these are adults in a peripatetic line of work, unlikely to interact much with their parents or to mention them that often. And in any case, the only hint we had of possibly negative relationships were with Mal -- who indicated that he was raised by his mother, but not that he had a bad father in any way -- and the Tams (which is kind of necessary to the plot, since they wouldn't have had to run away at all if they had had parents able and willing to help them). Kaylee worked for her father before joining Serenity and mentioned him without rancor; Jayne quoted his father ("My daddy always said...") without any hint of animosity.

Just as an aside, I'm not sure we can classify the Tams as bad parents quite yet. Simon obviously feels let down by them, but we can't know what kind of strong-arm tactics the Alliance might have used on them, or what ideals they might have thought they were adhering to in making the decisions they did. I'm hoping that we'll get to know more about them, one way or another, however the series continues itself.

Love the 'Verse,

Indigo S.

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Tuesday, July 3, 2007 2:21 AM

DEL

I for one LOVE the sense of family created between all the characters in FF.Shown especially when they sit down to dinner together, that time.

It seems stronger that they aren't related (obvious exception Simon and River u it's their interaction with each other that shows jst how strong a sense of family there is with the otehrs) and are so different but life throws then together and they stick.

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Tuesday, July 3, 2007 3:33 AM

KHELEKOREYAVIEL

I don't know if you guys have ever tried to write fantasy, but I'm guessing not. One of the oldest and most-used stories in the book: the orphan. Parents and fantasy don't mix. Parents get in the way. I mean, honestly, what good parent in their right mind would let Buffy do what she does? Or any of the other characters mentioned for that matter?

Parents get in the way. It's as simple as that. Look at Harry Potter. His parents are dead. He and his friends go to a boarding school where there are no parents around. Ever. Hermione Granger's parents are hardly ever seen at all. Come on. Would they really want her chasing evil mass murderers? I think not. Luke Skywalker was an orphan. The Pevensie children from Chronicles of Narnia went to a fantasy world and left their parents far behind.

Bottom line: It's not just a Joss thing. Everyone does it. And I do mean everyone. If you want to write a fantasy about kids or really anyone else, you have to get the parents out of the way. All Joss is guilty of is not having enough imagination in getting them out of the way.

Parents can say no, and that makes them a problem.

Oh, and an aside: Families are made, not born. Keep that in mind.

"I don't care what you believe. Just believe it."--Shepherd Derrial Book

"Intelligence doesn't determine what you do so much as how effectively you do it."--Dr. Temperance "Bones" Brennan

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Tuesday, July 3, 2007 4:30 AM

KHELEKOREYAVIEL

Also:

I don't think you can really compare Firefly to Dawson's Creek or any of the other "normal" TV shows. It is sci fi, which makes it an entirely different genre. Different concept, different characters, different situations. They're written in completely different ways. Dawson's Creek doesn't even apply. I doubt the kids on that show would last an hour on Serenity, and Mal probably wouldn't do so well in their place.

Comparing two shows that have absolutely nothing in common doesn't even remotely make sense. There's nothing to compare.

I will admit that since the Firefly characters are adults, their parents wouldn't really have much of a role in the first place.

But obviously: Kaylee's parents (or her Daddy) gave her permission to be aboard Serenity. Jayne's mother cares about him--she knitted him a cute little hat. The Tam parents are clueless.

Other than that, besides Mal, parents aren't really mentioned at all.

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