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Bloody good show as Buffy creator slays ‘em in the aisles
The Australian, 4 September 2010

Emma Tom talks Joss Whedon’s appearances at the Melbourne Town Hall and the Sydney Opera House for The Australian.

If television is a religion, then Joss Whedon is its god. Not a particularly physically imposing god (the American creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel and Firefly is a small and imperfectly formed ranga). But a deity nonetheless.

Whedon creates worlds and fills them with extraordinary, flawed beings.

He leaves trails of holy texts, sacred languages and exotic fetish objects.

And yea verily do his devotees prostrate themselves at his feet crying: “We are not worthy” and sometimes also: “But must thou smite quite so many of our favourite characters?”

Whedon, whose earthly miracles include an unholy blurring of the lines between high and low culture, has just made a pilgrimage to Australia to sermonise from the mounts of the Melbourne Writers Festival and the Sydney Opera House concert hall.

Both gatherings were sold out and prompted rapturous nerdgasms from his devoted disciples. “How does it feel to be god?” media academic Sue Turnbull asked him in Melbourne.

“Awkward,” Whedon replied, “because I don’t believe in me.”

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