by Matt Tarpey
Scarlett Johansson’s Agent Romanov, a.k.a. Black Widow, in this summer’s big budget block-busting behemoth The Avengers may not seem like much next to guys who control lightning, fly around in impenetrable armor, or transform into a big green rage monsters, but she still kicks some serious ass. Plus, she looks damn good doing it.
However, some of the higher-ups at Disney and Marvel questioned whether this butt-whooping beauty should even be included in the assembly. The fact that she made it onto the team is largely thanks to the man they call Joss and his penchant for strong, sexy, ass-kicking chicks. From Buffy the Vampire Slayer to River from Firefly to Echo from Dollhouse, Mr. Whedon’s work has been practically defined by the badass broads it features.
Well, that or its habit of attracting some of the most ludicrously passionate fan bases this side of a Star Trek convention. Like most fan bases they occasionally meet in hotel all-purpose rooms, dress up, recreate scenes, and have entire conversations comprised exclusively of dialogue lifted from episodes of the show. That’s pretty standard pop culture fandom. Whedonites take it one step further. The fan cult of Firefly actually managed to keep the show alive after it was cancelled by Fox. They wrote letters, set up rallies, and purchased enough DVDs to get Universal Studios’ attention.
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There is nothing wrong with Whedon’s world
Plus, as if helming one of the biggest movies of all time this summer, Whedon also helped create the psychological thriller slash horror slash raucous comedy movie Cabin in the Woods. Whedon and his buddy Drew Goddard, who also wrote such mind-bending projects as Cloverfield and Lost, penned the entire script over the course of 3 days in a Santa Monica bungalow. When’s the last time something you crammed into 3 days made $57.7 million?
It’s pretty clear that writing comes as naturally to Joss Whedon as silly exclamations do to Will Ferrell. After all, he comes from a long line of successful television writers. His grandfather, John Whedon wrote for The Andy Griffith Show and The Dick Van Dyke Show, and his father, Tom Whedon, wrote for The Golden Girls and Captain Kangaroo. Joss himself got his first writing job for the sitcom Roseanne.
He later also helped create your childhood through his work on Toy Story. So here we are, in the summer of Whedon. With the success of Cabin in the Woods, the sensation that is The Avengers, and still another, more personal project in his adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing just around the corner, how could anyone else possibly be The Man?
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Matt Tarpey once played Michael Jordan’s son in basketball. Now that that’s out there, maybe he’ll stop bragging about it around the office. Find him on Twitter @Matt_Tarpey
See more of Matt’s manly role models with his reasons Harrison Ford is The Man: Badassness knows no age–>
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