Stop Joss Whedon from Wrecking Batgirl, like He Almost Wrecked Wonder Woman

    Joss Whedon has a mixed history of writing female characters, and unfortunately, it's a markedly downhill one. While he did a decent job for its time in writing Buffy the Vampire Slayer 20 years ago, his recent work has been all about shaming, attacking, and sexually objectifying female characters to the point that they have no other personality traits. Notably, he turned the only female member of the Avengers - Black Widow - into a damsel in distress for fellow Avenger Bruce Banner, instead of letting her be a proper teammate. As Molly Shalgos put it (http://www.sheknows.com/entertainment/articles/1082882/avengers-age-of-ultron-joss-whedon-makes-black-widow-a-wimp) "I will never forgive the fact that there is one woman on the team and the sum total of what she was allowed to do in the movie was be sad about a boy." He also, in a line that has now been well critiqued, made Black Widow believe herself a "monster" for being unable to have biological children.

    Even before then, he nearly horribly ruined Wonder Woman, writing a script that described her as an inhumanly sexualized "elemental" "curvaceous" "girl" "taut as a drawn bow", who is charmed by and smiles at a man she just met telling her “turn around so i can see more of you naked”, who performs “a dance that is sensual, ethereal and wicked sexy” but gets less lines than her romantic interest Steve Trevor, who is called a "tasty looking girl" "stupid bitch" and "whore" then told to shut up by said romantic interest when she tries to defend herself, and - you guessed it - needs to be rescued by him throughout the film despite his status as a normal vanilla mortal. In Joss Whedon's mind, a female superhero with a history of being incredibly strong and kind and intelligent is still a woman, and so he extremely sexualizes and attacks her for being sexual in one, has her continuously rescued by her male counterparts in a tired trope that places her below them, and - both metaphorically and literally - strips away all that is good and strong and full and powerful, and interesting, about her.

    This petition is to ask, respectfully, that Joss Whedon not direct, write, or have anything to do with Batgirl. Perhaps in the future he can learn, and change! But to favor a male writer with a clear history of wrecking and degrading female superheroes for Batgirl, over the many wonderful directors and writers who do not have that history, is a sexist unfairness to both the fans and competing directors / writers in the job market. We ask that Warner Bros. go with someone else who does not have such a horrible history, female or not - although with the recent astounding commercial and critical success of Patty Jenkins, it's clear that bringing a female writer in to tell a female story can only help a movie be successful both financially and as a work of art.
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