Joss Whedon Stands By His Controversial Wonder Woman Script

Joss Whedon's never-turned-into-a-real-movie script for Wonder Woman went unseen by public eyes for 11 years — that is, until what Whedon created in 2006 leaked online in June of 2017. Seemingly collectively, the internet absorbed Whedon's work, roasted it to a burnt-black crisp, and denounced it as sexist and "scary for all the wrong reasons." 

Speaking with Variety at the premiere of Avengers: Infinity War, Whedon addressed the controversy surrounding his unproduced Wonder Woman script, defending the choices he made and the things he wrote. 

"I don't know which parts people didn't like, but I went and reread the script after I heard there was a backlash," the filmmaker said. "I think it's great. People say that it's not woke enough. I think they're not looking at the big picture. It's easy to take one phrase out of context."

Whedon may not understand which aspects of his take on Wonder Woman people found fault with, but readers haven't forgotten. Time and again touted as a feminist for his work on female-led series like Dollhouse and Firefly and for creating the ladies-are-strong-as-heck show Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Whedon described Wonder Woman in his script in language many found objectifying and completely contradictory to the pro-women values he supposedly held.

"To say she is beautiful is almost to miss the point. She is elemental, as natural and wild as the luminous flora surrounding. Her dark hair waterfalls to her shoulders in soft arcs and curls," Whedon wrote of Wonder Woman. "Her body is curvaceous, but taut as a drawn bow. She wears burnished metal bracelets on both wrists, wide and intricately detailed. Her shift is of another era; we'd call it ancient Greek."

Whedon owned up to the fact that he wasn't "the most woke individual who ever lived at that time 10 years ago" when he wrote the script, but he gave himself credit for trying. "I was in there swinging," stated Whedon. "The movie has integrity and the characters have integrity and I stand by it."

Despite his Wonder Woman going down in history as a controversial could-have-been, Whedon is still a fan of director Patty Jenkins' film, even though he felt like he should have hated it. "I had such a good time [watching Wonder Woman] that I didn't think about my script. And I'm the person who should have hated it, because I really loved my script," he said. "I totally forgot I had written one when I watched it. I just had a great time."

Elsewhere in his conversation with Variety, Whedon revealed the real reason he dropped out of Batgirl: He had a story, but it "kind of crumbled" in his hands. Petition to get that script to leak next?