Does Joss Whedon Have Parental Issues?

[Galileo_Galilee]

I ask this question in all seriousness. I've seen all of Buffy, Angel, and Firefly and I've seen a trend in these shows. Almost every single one of his characters have parental issues.

The core characters:

Buffy: Mother wasn't a saint, after all she did throw Buffy out once, but was somewhat supportive, but dad was never there after the divorce.

Xander: Dad's a drunk and parents charged him rent to stay in the basement.

Willow: Parents don't even know she's there.

Faith: Don't know a thing about ehr parents though i suspect there'd be some issues with her rebelliousness. I guess we could count the Mayor as a kind of dad, but he wanted to kill and eat people.

Giles: Don't know a thing about his parents.

Angel: Emotionally abusive father.

Spike: His mother did love and support him until Spike sired her. He was the Mama's boy.

Wesley: We don't know a thing about his parents until he joins Angel but then we learn his father is also emotionally distant and abusive.

Cordelia: Don't know a thing about her parents except her father never paid taxes.

Gunn: nothing.

Gwynnifred: The sole exception, but her parents almost seem to go the other route and
spoil her. Did they ever discipline her at all? They were almost over supportive of her. But we really didn't see them very much to really learn about her childhood to know for certain.

Doyle: Nothing.

Connor: Hated his dad but was because of the twisted upbringing for vengeance. Plus living in a hell dimension didn't help either.

Basically, this is a trend that he tends to use with his main characters.

When it comes to Firefly, we really don't know anything about their Parents though, except for the Tams. Simon was much beloved by his parents and supported, even spoiled to some extent, but they couldn't give a damn about River.

I don't know if Comics count, but Book's father brutally beat him until he left at a young age. This is in the comic; "Serenity: A Shepherd's Tale" which goes into the background of Shepherd Book.

I haven't seen Dollhouse so I can't really say about that show. But I'd bet if given time those main characters would probably have some serious parental issues.

The reason why I think this is because many times writers will bring their own personal issues into a character they write for, So, since the majority of these characters have parental issues of some sort, it leads me to consider a couple of things. That Joss doesn't really know how to write parents, or has parental issues himself and might be trying to work them out.


Personally in his next project I hope he starts writing more rounded parents.

[Hagazussa]

I think that it is a thing that just plain sells, it give the character issues that we can all relate to in some way while not doing something completely crazy, in addition giving a character distant or absent parents avoids the problem of having to create them as characters or having a plot hole as to why the character do not contact their parents when in money trouble and so on, it makes things cleaner.

[Naonak]

Joss.

[mathpiglet]

In Firefly, the characters are all adults. Most adults only see their parents once in a while. We do know that Mal's mother is a very tough old lady from one episode. I don't see the lack of parents a problem in this show.

[Lunaeclipse]

On the dvd's that I watched there was an interview session with Joss which explained it a bit for me. I can't remember his words well enough to quote him... It was a good watch if you can find it.

[Skydiver]

It's not one show creator that may or may not have an issue. Heck, look at SG1, jack's family is totally unmentioned, sam just has dad, daniel's parents are dead as are teal'c's

when you're dealing with young characters, giving them parental problems is an easy way to give them some dimension, and as others have said, an easy way to give young viewers something to relate to.

I don't think he has any sort of problem as just a habit of taking an easy way out in creating his characters.

[Lunaeclipse]

I think the short answer is that people like angst.

[Huaracocha]

As far as Dollhouse goes (having seen it) I don't recall any Mommy / Daddy issues playing into the mix. The dolls don't know about their previous lives, certainly no mention of parental issues with Echo, the main protagonist. None of the non-doll characters have any parent issues.. in fact there really isn't any background on families that I remember or even any 'old people'.

On the other side of the coin you could make a good case for Adelle being Mommy to the dolls and a pretty compelling one for Topher as their Daddy. If you look at it that way there are definitely huge issues there

[Lunaeclipse]

On the dvd's that I watched there was an interview session with Joss which explained it a bit for me. I can't remember his words well enough to quote him... It was a good watch if you can find it.

The Q & A with Joss on the Serenity movie dvd is where it is.