Joss Whedon - "Writers Guild of America" Strike - My very own riot

The Writers Guild of America (WGA) has been on strike since 2nd November 2007 against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP). A variety of issues are at stake, but the biggest bone of contention is the internet, where the AMPTP wants to pay little (in the case of TV) or no (in the case of films) money for showing material written by WGA members. Words : Abbie Bernstein

WGA member Joss Whedon, creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel and Firefly, is an ardent supporter of the WGA strike. When Marti Noxon, who served as an executive producer on Buffy, suggested that Joss invite some of his erstwhile staff writers from Mutant Enemy Productions to join him on the picket line, writer/producer Jane Espenson then thought of inviting fans along.

On the fan side, Brenda Lawhorn, Adam Levermore-Rich and Chris Bridges, all instrumental in the Fans4Writers.com, let Whedon’s admirers know that a Mutant Enemy strike day was in the offing. The result : on December 7, in front of Twentieth Century Fox Studios in Los Angeles, Whedon was joined by fellow Mutant Enemy writers/producers including Jeff Bell and Steven DeKnight, Lost actor William Mapother and Buffy/Angel/Firefly/Serenity cast members such as Amy Acker, Morena Baccarin, Eliza Dushku, Nathan Fillion, Summer Glau, Juliet Landau and many more.

Also present were about 450 fans, some of whom travelled from England and Australia to participate.

There’s a line in Firefly where one of the characters, realising that a town has risen up for him, says proudly : “My very own riot.” Does Whedon feel this way about the Mutant Enemy Day ?

“I don’t think of it as mine so much as belonging to everybody,” Whedon replies. “All the writers, and all the actors, and all the fans – we’re all part of something that is, dare I say, bigger than what we’re fighting against.”

Glau, now starring in Fox’s Terminator : The Sarah Connor Chronicles, says she feels this is more than just a writers/producers dispute. “I don’t think that anyone in Los Angeles could help but pay attention to what’s going on. It’s affecting everybody – it’s affecting people outside of the industry as well.” She’s not at all surprised by the big turnout : “Joss is here !” she points out with a laugh.

Does Whedon see any resonance in the issues involved in the strike and the issues he writes about in his scripts ?

“I do to an extent. I’ve been so in the strike that I’ve kind of stepped out of fiction for a while to deal with some hard, cold reality, but I think inevitably, class and class struggles and the people who get stepped on – those are the things that I like to write about. That’s what Buffy was originally about, and so the fact that it happens in the real world – well, I wouldn’t be writing about it if it didn’t.”