Joss Whedon: The Genius Behind Buffy

by Candace Havens and candace-havens

Joss Whedon: The Genius Behind Buffy is a biography of Joss Whedon, the wunderkind creator of television shows Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel and Firefly.

From Booklist Writers, actors, and fans often call Joss Whedon a genius. It's easy to see why. Whedon, who got his start writing for Roseanne, dreamed of writing movie screenplays. He got his shot when he sold his script for Buffy the Vampire Slayer,...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1932100008
• ISBN13: 9781932100006
• Release Date: April 2003
• Publisher: Benbella Books
• Length: 184 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 6.0" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

30% More Joss!

I highly recommend this book to the many fans of Joss Whedon. Highly informative and very well-written, this book offers wonderful insights into the mind of one of my all-time favorite writers. Joss' fans all know Joss is a genius - this book gives us insight into where that genius came from and how it developed. It also clarifies some of the difficulties Mr. Whedon faced in his early career in Hollywood with some of his screenplays such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer (the movie) and Alien: Ressurrection. It gives us insight into Joss' early T.V. writing and script-doctoring career, as well as detailed description of his Buffy, Angel and Firefly television days. I'd like to see this book updated, as it seems to have been published before BtVS season 7 aired, let alone the green-lighting of Serenity, the movie based on Firefly. Joss has many wonderful things in his future - let's see it here.

Couldn't put it down

This book is great. I've been a fan of Joss since the first time I saw Buffy. This book isn't all about Buffy though. It covers Buffy, Angel, Firefly and more. Funny as hell too. I couldn't put the book down. I read it straight through in one afternoon. A lot of insight into Joss and all of the cast members of his show are interviewed. It's part biography and part, well, everything else. Best book I've read in a while. Buy this book!

Insights into a profound pleasure

This is not a biography, it's not a "making of" and it's not about the facts of the television production industry. This is a book like none other I've ever read. Candace Haven has given us a glimpse of the man who created Buffy, of where inside him this concept came from -- but even more she's given us a glimpse of what it takes to be the sort of person who can succeed in breaking all the taboos in the television industry.What taboos did he break? Well, Buffy is a strong story-arc show like Babylon 5 and Dallas -- but without the (perceived) broad audience appeal of those shows. Buffy is about a young girl who kicks [butt]-- like Nikkita -- but going for a major network. Buffy is a series about vampires -- but it has a teen protagonist. Parents don't want their kids watching "that kind of thing." (or so they believed) The list of taboos is almost endless.The genius that Havens refers to is, I think, Whedon's deliberate, pre-meditated integration of 4 distinct genres, horror, action, comedy and drama, into a single cohesive and coherent story and then finding a way to sell this package to Hollywood despite violating all those taboos. Candace Haven writes in Joss Whedon The Genius Behind Buffy: "This integration lies at the core of Buffy's appeal, but it made the show almost impossible to desribe in a way that movie and network executives understood. How do you sell a show that doesn't fall into a clear genre? For this reason, the movie version of Buffy was turned into a comedy, much to Joss's dismay. As a television show, Buffy was rejected by the major networks. Ultimately, the fledgling WB accepted Buffy as a cross-genre show. This acceptance was either a result of WB's vision or of its executives' inexperience. But the reality is that it's unlikely Buffy would have been allowed to proceed with its cross-genre approach on one of the more established networks." But WB did let the show become established as a genre-mix, and that is quite literally changing the whole fiction industry from movies, to television -- even to books. Now mixed genre novels such as my own Sime~Gen novels which are based on the vampire archetype, or my vampire romances Those of My Blood and Dreamspy, or Jean Lorrah's hot selling Blood Will Tell, abound and are beginning to find an audience among the Buffy fans. Because of the effect this show has had on the entire fiction industry, this book has become a very "important" book for those who want to enter that industry. You have to read this book if you want to know "who" Joss Whedon is that he could get this show on the air and keep it there until its audience found it. Much of that information about who he is lies within the subtext of Candace Haven's fannish point of view cast against her journalistic professionalism. Read between the lines. You have to read this book to learn where inside Whedon the Buffy material came from and why the scripts for this show are so very, VERY well written. For just

A must-have for any Buffy/Angel/Firefly fan

This was so far beyond what I expected that I hardly know where to begin. There is enough detail about Joss' life to satisfy the curious, but not enough to bore the casual reader. The interviews are masterfully done. I'm amazed that Ms. Havens got to speak to so many people in and around Joss' life. Also, she managed to capture both Joss' genius and his wonderfully quirky sense of humor.In short, this book did something that I thought could not be done. It increased my respect and admiration for Joss Whedon.

Almost everything you ever wanted to know about Joss Whedon

It is interesting to read "Joss Whedon: The Genius Behind Buffy" at the same time I am working my way through the essays in "Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Philosophy: Fear and Trembling in Sunnydale." The tone of this tribute volume by Candace Havens to the creator of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," "Angel," and "Firefly," is informal rather than scholarly. More importantly, the goal of this volume is primarily to supply behind the scenes information for fans of these shows, although there is some critical insights offered in the chapter devoted to "Secrets of Success," which enumerates the seven elements that make "BtVS" a cult television series. Havens is working from various articles and websites about Whedon and his creations, and although it does not explicitly say so I assume she conducted interviews with various people quoted in this book. Since she shares with us impressions about her tours of the sets for Whedon's three television series I assume she took time to talk to some of these people; however, there are few references to specific interview (e.g., with Whedon's film professor, Jeanine Basinger) as to how much access she had to the cast and crew and I am rather curious as to how much of the material here is from primary sources (without going through all the secondary sources and doing a process of elimination). "Joss Whedon: The Genius Behind Buffy" is called a biography, but the focus is clearly more on his career than his life. The first chapter looks at his life through college while the second covers his work early work in television writing episodes of "Roseanne" and as a "script doctor" on films like "The Quick and the Dead," "Speed," "Waterworld," and "Toy Story." More importantly, this is where we learn about the key formative experiences Whedon had with his two major screenplays, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Alien Resurrection." That sets the stage for "Buffy: Round Two" in the third chapter, where Whedon gets a second chance at bringing his vision of "BtVS" to life. The rest of the chapters are devoted to the secrets of the success of "BtVS," a review of the seven seasons of the show (okay, six and a half seasons when this book went to press), a look at "Angel," Whedon's foray into comics and other screenplay ideas, his new show "Firefly" (now on eternal hiatus), a look at "Joss the Mentor," and a summary chapter on "The Real Joss." Throughout the books there are sidebars focusing on various actors (e.g., Alyson Hannigan, Anthony Stewart Head), most pages have choice quotes emblazon in white on black, and there are scores of black & white photographs, mostly by Sue Schneider (yes, I am curious her prominent role in this effort as well).All things considered, this book is a quick and enjoyable read. The main complaint, such as it is, would be that once Havens starts dispensing tidbits you want more of it; I was particularly interested to know more specifics about what lines from Whedon's script doctoring effort