There aren't too many TV/film-related people that I'd make a special effort to see, but of the ten or twelve TV shows I've seen more than the odd episode of in my entire life, three are Joss Whedon's work, as is most of the dialogue from one of my favorite action movies, Speed.* I think he's a brilliant writer and storyteller, and I'd never heard him speak. So I made the time to trek thirty miles up the road on a Saturday evening and sit in a long line on the sidewalk outside Wesleyan's film studies building for ninety minutes in order to get a seat in the auditorium for his talk, titled "Defining American Culture: How Movies and TV Get Made." The talk was the keynote speech for a larger conference. I didn't feel like paying $250 to spend the weekend talking about breaking into Hollywood, so I was quite grateful that they opened the speech to the public for free.
As might be expected, Whedon is a witty and entertaining speaker, well worth the queue time. Despite his geeky, aw-shucks veneer and claimed nervousness, he spoke fluently and confidently, with a deep knowledge of and love for his field. And if he was using notes, it wasn't obvious; the whole thing felt like a casual (if unusually amusing) conversation. Not having spent much time watching his DVD commentaries, I was surprised that his voice was deeper than I expected and that he was sporting a distinctly red beard.
The rest of this extremely lengthy post is mostly a description of and excerpts from his remarks. I thought when I started tapping away that I'd just get down a few good lines to quote, but it turned out to be such an interesting talk that I started taking very detailed notes and transcribing furiously. He tosses off serial one-liners faster than I can type, but I believe anything in quotes below is word-for-word accurate.
Enjoy!
Over to Whedon:
"It is with great honor and extraordinary terror that I address you tonight..."
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