By Edward Kelly
Consider it Conversation Starting 101. To get a group’s attention you need to know three things: what does everyone like, what do some members of the group like, what do some members of the group dislike. And then make some wild claim as though it were fact. For example: You see a bunch of 20-year-old dudes sitting around a coffee shop table. They are all wearing hoodies, jeans and sneakers. Most of them sport facial hair or at least attempts (deliberate or otherwise) at facial hair. It’s safe to assume that these guys have opinions about Star Wars.
I mean, maybe they aren’t hardcore nerds, but even if they say “it sucks” or “the prequels suck” or “Empire is better than Jedi” then you know that they’ll have a conversation for at least ten minutes. It’s just a fact – a fact because Star Wars is a cultural touchstone. Ten minute debate, easy. If you really want to stir the pot, then you pull Conversation Starting 102 and say, “Y’know, when you think about it… Hayden Christensen was the perfect choice to play young Anakin.” Suddenly ten minutes become an hour.
Now, if you’re a normal person who doesn’t spend time thinking and writing about the purposeful rhetorical strategies one can use to enliven an otherwise blasé Friday night, then you’ve probably never thought to be purposefully controversial about relatively trivial pop culture matters. But then you’re not me. I learned about the art of conversation starting by experiencing it – the hard way. I didn’t even know I had done it. I was on the phone with my brother and I casually said, “Y’know… I really think Joss Whedon is this generation’s George Lucas.”
It was a classic neophyte Whedonite mistake – and my brother, fairly, balked. I could totally see the comparisons between Whedon and Lucas: both have created long-standing sci-fi/fantasy genre legacies with fervent followings. But my brother refused to believe that Whedon was anything more than a well-established cult figure (he has since semi-retracted this opinion after borrowing my Buffy/Angel DVDs). And a cult figure does not a media-conglomerate-unto-himself (such as Lucas) make.
So, I’ll admit, right off the top, that the title of this post is stupid. These types of questions are ridiculous and superfluous. Furthermore, here’s the main reason why I’m wrong already:
Joss Whedon is still Joss Whedon. Whedon remains a nerd-culture icon, beloved by his fans and voraciously defended by almost anyone (including me) who has taken time to watch his shows. Despite his recent high-profile assignment as the writer/director of the upcoming Avengers movie, he is still firmly lodged as a guy who has had a relatively spotty career regarding popular hits (for every Dr. Horrible there’s a Dollhouse – but then for every Toy Story there’s an Alien Resurrection). Thus, he is still an underdog, which endears him to his fans but, as my brother said those many years ago, he’s still a cult figure.
But since Whedon seems to be on the verge of finally crossing over into J.J. Abrams territory, the next guaranteed Conversation Starting questions one might ask are:
- Is there another Whedon?
- And have we already found him?
At the risk of stirring the pot event more, let me attempt to answer the above…
Steven Moffat is the current show-runner for Dr. Who, currently in its fifth season (or, like, the millionth season if you’re counting all the way back to the 60s when the show premiered). Moffat took over from Russell T. Davies, who was responsible for the creative direction of the show since the reboot in 2006. Before assuming such vaunted responsibility, Moffat penned several of the first four season’s best episodes (if you ever want to utilize Conversation Starting 101 in a positive manner, just mention “Blink” around Who fans and stand back as the unadulterated praise gushes forth).
Now, both Whedon and Moffat have very similar styles – they both favor overarching storylines peppered throughout relatively standalone episodes, they both write distinct female characters, and they both favor characters over plot. But where the similarities start getting really interesting is when you dig a little bit.
For example, both Moffat and Whedon cut their teeth on comedies. With Whedon, it was a writer for ’90s staple sitcom Roseanne. For Moffat, it was on several different shows of his own creation, but most notably Coupling. Both writers still endow their scripts with their distinct, personal humor. Whedon prefers the defining “WhedonSpeak” (adding a “y” to the end of words, ex: kill-y) and Moffat peppers hyper-verbose dialogue with a bevy of one-liners.
Also, both writers have a predilection towards tragedy. A classic Whedon move is to kill everyone’s favorite character in the same episode that said character experienced his or her happiest moment. Likewise, Moffat has carried over Davies’ instinct to portray the Doctor as a lonely god – destined to be drawn toward and help protect humanity, but never able to be one of us.
And finally both scribes consistently tackle the fluctuating nature of identity. Wait, wait, don’t stop reading. Trust me, I’m onto something here. Whether it’s Buffy watching as a vicious gang of motorcycle-riding demons quarter her robot counterpart or Jekyll (from Moffat’s 2007 miniseries) constantly switching back and forth between lion-tossing mad man (seriously, that happens and it is awesome) and struggling father, the writers love to tackle the issue of Who We Are.
So is that enough? Can I now proclaim that Moffat as the next Whedon? No, of course not, mainly because the first point still stands: Whedon is still Whedon. And Moffat isn’t some newcomer – he’s worked in television since the late 80s and bolsters an impressive resume.
And yet…
Such is the beauty and one of the maddeningly frustrating truths of Conversation Starting 101. There’s no definitive answer. There’s only the debate, the strong words, the late-night energy focussed on things that don’t really matter. It’s something for moments with friends clustered around the table.
Well, that and, y’know, the entire Internet.
