Review of Wilcox, Rhonda V., Tanya R. Cochran, Cynthia Masson, and David Lavery, eds. Reading Joss Whedon. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2014. Print.

Uppsatsen är en analys där de två amerikanska science fiction-serierna Dollhouse (Joss Whedon, 2009) och Firefly (Joss Whedon, 2002), som sänts i både svensk och amerikansk tv har granskas. Syftet är att titta närmare på hur kvinnor och deras kroppar framställs i serierna och i reklamen för sagda serier. Genom en kvalitativ innehållsanalys granskas de båda serierna, där fokus har legat på hur de kvinnliga karaktärerna framställs i båda serierna men också på hur de marknadsförs i reklamen innan serierna har sänts. Uppsatsen är uppdelad i tre teman; ”den kvinnliga hjälten”, ”kvinnans roll” och ”den kvinnliga kroppen”. Serierna har valts ut eftersom de båda är gjorda av regissören Joss Whedon som tidigare gjort serien Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Joss Whedon, 1997), en serie som hyllats för sin positiva framställning av kvinnor. I slutdiskussionen finns sedan en sammanfattning på vad som uppsatsen har kommit fram till. Diskussionen innehåller även reflektioner över Joss Whedons ambition att framställa kvinnor på ett bra och accepterat sätt, men också hur andra serier idag gör framsteg i sina porträtt av kvinnor och deras kroppar.

Thesis (M.A.)--Montana State University--Bozeman, 2007. / Typescript. Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Linda Karell. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 90-94).

Firefly, a television series created, written, and directed by Joss Whedon, premiered on the Fox network in 2002 and aired only eleven episodes before it was cancelled halfway through its first season. While it gained some on-air popularity, it was not until fans convinced Fox via online chatrooms to release the series on DVD that it gained posthumous acclaim. Whedon credits westerns as the inspiration for Firefly because frontier characters tend to be natural, flawed, complex human beings who question universal truths through widely recognized motifs of classic westerns. In a February 17, 2011 Entertainment Weekly interview, Firefly actor Nathan Fillion stated that if he won the lottery, he would buy the rights to Firefly, inadvertently rallying fans to bring back the series that was cancelled almost a decade before, mirroring the cowboy culture that Firefly emulates of marginalized individuals fighting for a cause. Despite its science fiction and space motifs, Firefly is no different from classic westerns in blending legend and reality, reinforcing the mixture of myth and fact that constitutes frontier ideology. Firefly, like the cowboy culture it represents, has become a cultural icon, romanticized because of its brief and nostalgic nature. This paper will look at the enduring appeal of Firefly through western motifs of frontier, displacement, and mobility, considering why westerns lend themselves to continued nostalgia and reinvention in contemporary popular culture.

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Popular culture scholar Henry Jenkins chronicles the intellectual and emotional labor of being an “aca/fan” – or an academic, trained in media criticism, who also operates as a media consumer. This panel explores aca/fan identity through Joss Whedon’s media narratives, such as The Avengers, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Cabin In the Woods, Dollhouse, Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog and Fire

Hero characters and their narratives serve as important sites for negotiating a culture’s values. Informed by sexism in Western cultures, female heroes often construct and perpetuate women’s statuses as second-class citizens. However, female heroes also can and sometimes do work against such representations. This thesis argues for a third wave feminist interpretation of Joss Whedon and John Cassaday’s Astonishing X-Men comic books as a text that brings multiple feminist perspectives into conversation with each other and that opposes certain patriarchal systems. Through narrative and formal analysis, I explore female X-Men Emma Frost and Kitty Pryde as characters who reject gender essentialism and misogynist value systems and whose relationship addresses concepts of difference in third wave feminism. Using similar methods, I also explore an interpretation of villain Danger as a failure to integrate radical feminist ideologies into third wave feminism. I believe that Astonishing X-Men provides an example of how norms of the mainstream superhero comic book medium, which scholars have criticized as sexist, can be reworked for a new generation of feminists. / text

This thesis seeks to respond to the existing dearth of work on practical matters of intersemiotic translation in translation studies thus far by turning to other disciplines that have explored comparable phenomena in greater depth. In particular, in the current atmosphere of media convergence and transmedia production, characterized by the ubiquity of adaptations, remakes, spin-offs, and sequels in the entertainment industry, cross-media adaptation represents one of the most common and prominent forms of intersemiotic translation. Therefore, the various fields of inquiry related to current phenomena of intersemiotic translation, including adaptation studies, film studies, fan studies, and media studies in general, offer relevant and informative models for expanding our understanding of success in intersemiotic translation. The methodology employed involves an interdisciplinary descriptive approach, using examples of cross-media adaptation found in the works of one successful intersemiotic translator, Joss Whedon. Acknowledging the contextually contingent nature of any such case study, the findings of this thesis identify all three participants in cultural production—form, producer, and audience—as active contributors in the successful production and perpetuation of intersemiotic translations. In particular, this thesis explores possible causes of success in relation to specific cross-media adaptations, proposes attributes of the successful intersemiotic translator, and examines how the reiterative behaviors of active audiences, such as rereading, reinterpretation, and rewriting, help to extend a work’s success. The capacity to inspire a continuing tradition of translation is itself a key contributing factor to the success of an intersemiotic translation and is most often performed with the collaboration of a community of interpreters. Achieving success is therefore a collective endeavor and a continual process of sustaining a work’s presence in the collective consciousness by renewing its value across temporal, cultural, and semiotic systems. Based on these findings, notions of form, production, and reception in intersemiotic translation are understood by proposing a model of convergent translation, the notion of the auteur-translator, and a collaborative understanding of the construction of a text and its significance through the afterlife of translation.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-28T20:39:29Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 luisa.pdf: 419235 bytes, checksum: eafeb45127c76780927c176a14608150 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2007-05-11 / The aim of this dissertation is to analyze the symbolical trajectory of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer, a character created by Joss Whedon in the 1990s. The show which tells Buffy s story consists of 144 episodes, which where considered a ratings phenomenon in many countries. In order to reach this objective, all 144 episodes were watched and schematized in summaries, which made it possible to identify and discriminate significant events, images and sequences in the composition of Buffy and her journey. The themes that seemed to be relevant at this point were closely related to the hero s archetype, which is the motivator of the process of the development of consciousness. Therefore, the analysis is based on C. G. Jung s concepts of analytical psychology and on Joseph Campbell s study of the heroic cycle. Buffy is regarded as a contemporary image of the hero s archetype. Throughout her journey, she was faced with seven challenges of growing complexity, which called for deep transformation and encompassed the formation of the persona, the withdrawal of projections, and the process of making aspects of shadow and animus conscious and integrated. Her trajectory is crowned with the possibility of transforming herself as well as her surroundings. In the first six confrontations, Buffy finds a way to save the world, but in the last (the seventh), she transforms it. In addition, vampire symbolism, serial characters and aspects pertaining to mass culture are discussed and interrelated / Esta dissertação tem como objetivo a análise simbólica da trajetória de Buffy A Caça-Vampiros, personagem criada por Joss Whedon na década de 1990. O seriado que relata sua história é composto por 144 episódios, que foram considerados fenômeno de audiência em diversos países. Para a consecução desse objetivo, os 144 episódios foram assistidos e mapeados para a elaboração de sinopses, o que permitiu identificar e discriminar eventos, imagens e seqüências significativas na composição da personagem Buffy e sua jornada. A aproximação desse tema remete ao arquétipo do herói motivador do processo de desenvolvimento da consciência. A análise, portanto, está referenciada nos conceitos da psicologia analítica de C. G. Jung e no estudo do ciclo heróico desenvolvido por Joseph Campbell. Buffy é compreendida como uma imagem contemporânea do arquétipo do herói que, no decorrer de sua jornada, foi confrontada com sete desafios de complexidade crescente. Transformações intensas foram requisitadas e compreenderam a formação da persona, a retirada de projeções, a conscientização e integração de aspectos da sombra e do animus. A trajetória de Buffy é coroada com a possibilidade de transformação de si mesma e do meio que a circunda. Nos seis primeiros confrontos, Buffy encontra uma maneira de salvar o mundo, mas, no último, ela o transforma. Além disso, são discutidos o simbolismo do vampiro, as personagens seriadas e questões referentes à cultura de massa

This thesis used theories of historical memory studies to examine the ways in which the American writer/director/showrunner Joss Whedon uses American memories, particularly those associated with American experiences in the Civil War and World War II, in his works of fictional, genre television and film. Emphasis was placed on the manner in which Whedon engages in the construction of popular memory, how his work challenges and/or reinforces existing memory narratives, and how Whedon uses historical memories to comment on and influence political, social, and cultural issues in the present. This investigation shows how at least certain productions of American popular culture are increasingly dominant forces in the construction of public memory. The major theoretical underpinnings of this examination are provided by the works of John Bodnar, Richard Slotkin, and Jeanine Basinger.