Creatives whose subject matter is not in their control

From Bookslut:

"When my friend was writing a blog entry for the Wall Street Journal about Joss Whedon, our conversations got on the subject of Dollhouse, which is pretty easy for us to do. His final version:

"Firefly" also introduced the odd thematic obsession around prostitution and rescue that took over and imploded in the near-future science fiction show "Dollhouse," about a brainwashing technology that gives rise to high-tech brothels, and (much more entertainingly) Armageddon. There was something confused and unprocessed there - I felt I was watching an artist working with material he wasn't yet in control of.

I think I eventually just said, "I don't think men should get to write from the perspective of female prostitutes. Unless they take a class or something." Turns out Joss Whedon maybe did take a class! According to the "Internet." It just didn't help. "

Joss Whedon's Dollhouse always felt disturbingly too titillated by its own sexual gross-out factor. I agree with the blogger and Bookslut - Joss didn't have control of that stuff, and it came out icky.

The much more empowering Furi Curi (or Fooly Cooly) was from some of the most ostensibly anti-feminist, exploitative kind of anime artists, the guys from Gainax. Somehow, when they just let themselves have fun - and spent a ton of money following their inner muses - they came up with a female alien who rides a Vespa who keeps slamming a young man with a guitar in order to connect with a large male alien power that the young man can channel - but it turns out at the end, the male power can only manifest when the young man sacrifices himself for love of the female, head-hitting alien. I don't know - is there such a thing as accidental feminism? Can a man who studied feminism in college and created one of the best-ever female superheroes also have some secret desire to see women powerless?

When two worlds collide...

When my geeky interests and my writing life collide, I feel obligated to post about it here.

I have a couple of poems in a new anthology called The Beastly Bride, which includes work by Peter S. Beagle and Jane Yolen, among many talented writers, and I was interviewed about my work in the book here. Click here for more discussion of the book, including some cool imagery of the Fairy Melusine and The Fox-Wife.

In TV News...
Anyone else excited about the return of Futurama, despite lackluster movies? How about the pickup of Season 4 of Chuck, or the killing of Heroes?