Joss Whedon: The Biography (31 page)

Between the airings of “Hush” and “New Moon Rising,” the Bronze had seen sporadic surges of angry posts in opposition to the Willow/Tara relationship. Most were from outsiders; since the Bronze was an official fan board frequented by the show’s own staff, conservative church groups told members to go there to register their disapproval. But even within the fan community, some parents announced that they would no longer let their kids watch
Buffy
if Willow “turned gay.” The uproar reached a crescendo when “New Moon Rising” aired on May 2, 2000, and sympathetic members of the community decided they needed to counter the protests by sending the
Buffy
crew a tangible sign of their support.

Bronze poster “Kristen” suggested that they should send Joss Whedon, Alyson Hannigan, and Amber Benson a toaster—a reference to the famous “coming out” episode of the sitcom
Ellen
. Many other fans loved the idea. They raised enough to purchase a big, expensive toaster from Williams-Sonoma, which Kristen had engraved with an exchange between Willow and Tara that closed out “New Moon Rising”: “Y
OU HAVE TO BE WITH THE ONE YOU L-LOVE
.” “I
AM
,” M
AY
02, 2000, W
HEN
S
UBTEXT
B
ECAME
T
EXT.
It was hand-delivered to Mutant Enemy, and later the fans “heard from other people [that] from then on the toaster was kept behind his [Joss’s] desk, right where everyone could see it,” said Bronzer Paula Carlson.

The next day, Joss posted an original song about his esteemed award to the Bronze:

LESBIAN TOASTER

LOVE YOU THE MOST

ALTERNATIVE LIFEstyle CHOICE TOASTER

HOT GIRL-ON-GIRL TOAST

(DRUM SOLO)

LESBIAN TOASTER AH-WHOOOOO!

(TRIANGLE SOLO)

TOAST FOR YOU AND FOR ME….

Got an Emmy nom, all very well but my beautiful engraved (ENGRAVED, for the love of God) toaster is far far cooler…. So thanks, and thanks, and thanks. Bread shall be warm….

Kristen—“like” is not the word. (“pudendous” is not the word either, but it’s a damn fun one.) NO ONE i know has an engraved
toaster. Plus, coolness aside, the fact that you cared that much about what we’ve been doing with Willow and Tara … sniff sniff, something in my eye … Can’t wait also to show JANE, who wrote for Ellen back when. Thank you.

In
Buffy
’s past few seasons, as its ratings grew and home Internet access exploded, more and more people had started posting on the Bronze. Word spread about the board’s big annual get-together, attended by the cast and crew, so the Posting Board Party grew in attendees each year. It quickly lost the intimate feel of the first party. “Somewhere along the line,” says “Missi,” a Bronzer, “the PBP stopped being about the people and started being about the cast and who was going to be there and what was going to go on. People got really angry about that.”

By 2000, the PBP had become a charity event with corporate sponsorship. The event raised money for Make-a-Wish, a noble venture, but it meant that tickets were far more expensive, out of the price range of many Bronzers. And as the organizers established partnerships with Fox, the WB, and other official corporate entities, the party moved away from its initial identity as a gathering by and for the fans themselves.

Theoretically, the event was still supposed to offer Bronzers unfettered access to any
Buffy
insiders who chose to attend. The PBP was supposed to be a safe space where all attendees—Bronzers and show VIPs alike—were shown the same respect. But the venue now set aside a separate area for the VIPs to escape the crowds. And crowds there were, especially around the actors. At the 2000 PBP, new cast member Marc Blucas was surrounded in a huge semicircle about fifteen people deep throughout most of the night, making maneuvering through the venue impossible at times. People were knocked over by the swarming fans, and many attendees were embarrassed by the way Blucas was groped.

Disillusionment with the event grew. Bronzers complained that it had become a celebrity circus where “you could see the stars of the show, usually from a distance … hiding in the VIP lounge drinking free alcohol,” said poster “Leather Jacket.” It was starting to take on the overwhelming, impersonal feel of a current-day San Diego Comic-Con.

The message board itself retained its free-flowing character, the sense that it was a space where people could talk about personal matters as easily as they did the series. But that quality was tested when a member of Joss’s crew took to the Bronze to discuss his series’ behind-the-scenes tensions and politics.

Right before the season-four finale aired, stunt coordinator and second unit director Jeff Pruitt was fired. It came as a great surprise to the fans, as his work had been highly respected in the industry, and he had greatly elevated
Buffy
’s fight choreography upon joining the series in season two. He and his wife, Sarah Michelle Gellar’s stunt double Sophia Crawford, had established themselves as an incredibly integral part of the show.

On May 17, 2000, Pruitt decided to air his issues with his dismissal, the show, and Joss on the Bronze. That night, the board was heavily trafficked by VIPs, with posts from Joss, Amber Benson, and writer David Fury. Pruitt answered a few questions from the fans, and in response to being asked if he’d return for the fifth season, he posted a link to a story he wrote called “The Parable of the Knight.” It was a thinly veiled allegory of his experiences on the show—so thinly veiled that it was more like a windowpane. Pruitt alleged that he’d been pushed out due to infighting among the cast and crew, likening himself to a long-suffering Knight who, along with his Handmaiden wife, served a young King (Joss), who turned on them once the Princess (Gellar) and her evil cohorts (the show’s crew) began to conspire against him.

As a long-standing member of the Bronze community, Pruitt found that many posters were sympathetic about his firing—until they started reading his tale. The board had often been a place to connect with the show’s creators in a truly unique way, but this mudslinging among the staff had never happened before. The situation only got worse when Joss and David Fury both returned to the board to refute Pruitt’s accusations—and get in some jabs themselves:

Joss says:

… I read the Parable of the Knight. Felt I ought to comment on the situation. Yes, Jeff is leaving. It’s sad. Jeff was a huge asset to Buffy—he took it to a new level of action and grace with Sophia, and his style will always be a part of the show. But this isn’t a fairy tale. Or a thinly veiled “parable.” It’s a hard, gruelingly hard job, ten
months a year, thirteen hours a day, with fifty or more people straining, working, getting in each other’s face, stepping on each other’s toes, driving each other crazy. It happens. And the only thing that keeps it together is the effort people make to work together. Doesn’t always happen. There are conflicts, raging egos—and even occasional backstabbing, I’m sorry to say. There are very few “plots,” and as far as I can tell, no jousting of any kind. People just wear on each other and eventually sometimes you have to make a change. No one’s to blame—or everyone is. But either people get into a groove of working as part of the whole or they don’t. And seeing yourself as a noble knight being plotted against by evil courtiers really doesn’t help. Remember that.

Fury says:

Hey, Joss—Does this mean I should call off my legions who at this moment are preparing to storm your castle and overthrow your kingdom? Damn. There goes my weekend.

Joss says:

Fury, do not storm my castle, for I have read that I am a weak King, and I would probably get a nervous tummy.

The Bronze was not immune to squabbles. But now the posters were being dragged into a fight they wanted no part of. Pruitt felt betrayed and chose to take his feelings to the fans, but instead of garnering support, he alienated Bronzers, who felt like they now had to watch their divorcing parents have a nasty fight in their bedroom.

Kathy Hein, a Bronzer, remembered, “Joss came on and he and Jeff were arguing with each other on the Bronze, and we had the creator of the show and the second unit director arguing with each other like
children
on a
public Internet forum
in front of fans.” As the Bronzers would police bickering among themselves, they eventually insisted that Joss, Fury, and Pruitt take their arguments elsewhere.

Over the next few months, Pruitt gave more candid interviews, and most of his ire was aimed at Gellar for her actions on set, her attitude toward fans, and, in particular, her insistence in interviews that she did her own
stunts. Joss told her about Pruitt’s parable, but she refused to read it, already feeling weary from all the online criticism she saw daily. “There’s no other word except
crushing
,” Gellar said of her reaction. “It’s one thing to hear people you don’t know saying lies about you on the Internet, but when it comes from a disgruntled former employee…. It really, really, really hurt.”

Unsurprisingly, Pruitt’s actions destroyed the relationship he had with Joss. He found out that over the previous year, venting e-mails he had written to friends had been shared with Joss. “He was very upset at my revealing personal things about him in them,” Pruitt said. “I thought I was talking ‘privately’ just as he did when he’d vent to his friends about our private world.”

Pruitt’s choices hadn’t endeared him to the fans, but no one came out of the situation cleanly. There was residual anger at both Pruitt and Joss for staging their battle in what was supposed to be a welcoming community for fans. The incident knocked Joss off his pedestal just a little—but in some small way it also made him a true Bronzer: someone who was smart and witty but could be petulant and pissy at times. Kai said that Joss had looked to the Bronze for a sense of comfort and community himself, and perhaps he found that he could let his guard down and say what he was thinking—for better or worse.

As
Buffy
’s fifth and
Angel
’s second season went into production, the writers and cast found new ways to stretch their wings. The previous year, Tim Minear had asked Joss if he could direct an episode—something only two other Mutant Enemy writers, David Greenwalt and Joss himself, had done up to that point. Joss had created the
Buffy
series in part so he could gain experience as a director when no one else would give him the chance, and now he was in a position to offer that same opportunity to his staff. He knew that the best way to learn how to direct is just to do it, and that with learning comes a lot of moments of getting it wrong. Joss told Minear that he would let him direct an episode of
Angel
under one condition: if he failed, and he might, Minear couldn’t quit the show. “You can’t get upset and you can’t quit, because I need you as a writer and producer on this show,” he said.

Minear’s first directorial effort would be the seventh episode of season two, which he also wrote. “Darla” would explore the history of Angel’s vampiric creator, from her own siring by the Master in 1600s Virginia through China’s Boxer Rebellion at the turn of the twentieth century. Until her resurrection in
Angel’s
season-one finale, Darla was primarily known as Angel’s lover and guide through his years as a murderous demon, but earlier episodes of season two would reveal that she was brought back to life as a human. In his episode, Minear wanted to explore who Darla was before she was vamped and how that was reflected in the vampire she became, and compare how she deals with her restored humanity to Angel’s actions after his own human soul was returned.