Image courtesy of examiner.com

Okay, by “meet” I mean, of course, “sitting in a crowd listening to a speech” and by “maker” I mean “the guy I really really like,” but that’s what it felt like yesterday when I went to see Joss Whedon speak at Sydney’s Opera House.  This is the guy who wrote the show that changed how I viewed and still view television. Buffy the Vampire Slayer was the first show that I watched and then actually retained.  I mean, there were shows that I liked and watched frequently, but it always went in one ear and out the other, but Buffy was different - it’s hard to explain and it’s a story for another day, but all I know is that I’m grateful it happened.

I didn’t know what to expect going into this thing yesterday. I figured he was going to talk about how cool it was to do the stuff he does and then he was going to be grilled embarrassingly by over-zealous zealots he calls “fans.” I have some friends who saw him in Melbourne the night or two before and said that he was charming and intelligent (which was no surprise) but the host they had didn’t facilitate well. Even though I believe we had a different host, I thought the worst that could happen is that we’d have a douche up on stage showing his ass, but  I mean, a bad host is better than no Joss at all.

We were warned right.  Will Anderson, a local comedian, was a crude and disrespectful facilitaor.  Not that I think he meant to be, as I understand it, he is quite the fan, but he wore flip flops and swore a lot.  Sometimes there were awkward pauses in conversation where the audience and Mr. Whedon were like “ehwha?”  Not to mention he would occassionally interrupt the guest of honor to get his own less funny quip in.  That said…

…then there was Joss.

And oh boy, was there Joss.  He came out on stage with a bang.  Smoke and blue light brought a silhouette out into the shape of a man; a hero to so many. Then he started to speak.  The fact that he was just talking several yards away from me made the fangirl in me want to piddle in excitement.  At that point he could do no wrong.  Then, something brilliant happened.  He said that he was going to talk about something different this time around, that he wasn’t going to give the stock standard speech about networks and little trivia about the shows that we could find out anywhere on the internet, he was instead going to talk about himself and what made him tick.

Oh. Em. Gee.

That. Just. Happened.

It was amazing.  He got really intimate.  He spoke about his childhood and his fears growing up and what scared him and what his “dark place” was.  He said before he never knew why he wrote teenaged girls with superpowers.  He always just thought they were cool, but something must have been asked at the Melbourne talk that made him think because he said that the last few days has put some things into place for him.  Yes, he will always write about teenaged girls with superpowers, but more than that, he will always write about hopelessness.  He said that these young girls he wrote were his avatar because he is a small scared man that will always need to be saved. Wowza.

Ah, now, that is interesting.  He said that he was always frightened, helpless, and alone.  He talked about his father and how he was scared of his disapproving scowl ¹ and how if you dropped him three blocks from his house and turned him around twice, he would likely die of exposure.  There was a vulnerability and a truth to what he was saying that I have never heard from him in any interview or DVD extra.  It was amazing.  Amazing is not the best, most articulate way to express that, but it’s all I got. There was something very human but still “Joss is God” like about him as he continued to talk.

When he spoke about himself and his eccentricities it was amazing how much I related to him.  I know that must sound pompous, but I can’t help it. When he spoke about a plain, uneventful, childhood unworthy of a memoir and his social inability to speak to people, especially women, and I was there with him.  When he said that he said he wanted to be everything, to do everything; to paint, to write, to draw, to dance, to play in a band — but then only got good enough to then quit, I wanted to jump out of my seat and shout ‘amen.’ When he said that he was not scared to be alone but often was, I empathized wholeheartedly, thinking about the little study I have made for myself that no one is allowed in. And when he said “I will never be less than a storyteller,”  and spoke with a subtle, non-pretentious passion that oozed from ever pore, I was inspired and filled with hope.  It was so moving that I didn’t want it to end.

But it did.  Will Anderson came back on to try to be funnier than him and the mics were opened up to the audience to ask the equivalent of “what was your favorite childhood toy and why?” ²  I just wanted to scream at them all and get Joss to keep talking about whatever it was he wanted to say – politics, religion, shoe polish, anything – but alas, that would have been really awkward and Joss would have looked at me funny, so I allowed it to continue on course.

I did not expect to be a giant fangirl about this.  I thought it would just be something fun and cool to say, like I mentioned, he was the guy who started it all. Showing up was the only way I could show my gratitude.  I’m now so glad that I went, I got so much more out of it than ever thought possible.

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