From the Annals of Joss Whedon Studies

Now I love Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Firefly/Serenity as much as any English graduate student of my generation, but the thought has occasionally crossed my mind that their Creator, Joss Whedon, is not quite as brilliant as he would like to think. After all, he did have an (uncredited) hand in that ridiculous script for X-Men (although it is a matter of debate how much responsibility he had for the clunkiest line in the film).

But, even if he is brilliant (and I'm still not totally convinced), I still suspect he is kind of a jackass. Have you ever noticed how, in interviews, he's kind of full of himself? And now I present to you some further evidence.

The email below was passed on to me by my lone sibling (I'm being purposely vague here), who has a friend who applied for an internship with Whedon (his first mistake). The applicant was so excited about receiving this email that he forwarded it to tons of his friends (his second mistake). I've redacted his first and last name and one other name (presumably the name of Whedon's assistant), but left the rest of the email as I received it. I have no other means of convincing you of its authenticity other than to tell you that I believe it is real. My sibling thought it was clever. I disagree. See what you think:

Hello Mr. [surname redacted]. Do you mind if I call you [first name redacted]? I hope not, 'cause I'm gonna. I suppose if you don't like it, you could always put little sticky notes over the screen. Although I have to let you know that that makes scrolling exceedingly difficult. It can be done, now-- I know!-- but it is not for the faint of heart. Or faint of scrolling.

Mr. Whedon is unfortunately not looking for any more interns right now. He is looking for a house cleaner, because he has trouble with the concept that his messiness does make a wonderful home for all sorts of bugs, and eventually he won't be able to blame it all on his four year old son.

KAI: Honey...what happened in here?
JOSS: [(indifferently, and he's LAZY too!] What do you mean?
KAI: [unnaturally shrill--this happens a lot] There are pieces of at
least four sandwiches, a completely uneaten salad--
JOSS: Oops.
KAI: --thousands of crumpled pieces of paper--
JOSS: I'm an artist!
KAI: --and more than 5 porno magazines all over the floor!
[Long silence.]
JOSS: What was Arden thinking?!

However bleak the prospect seems of working with Mr. Whedon in the near future in a professional film industry capacity, do not fret, for fear is the path to the dark side. There are lots of learning internships out there that could eventually lead to directly working with the man himself. Universal Pictures, Lion's Gate, DreamWorks, Warner Bros. Movies, View Askew, New Line Cinemas, Revolution Studios, Paramount Pictures, Troma Entertainment, Miramax, and Fine Line Features all have headquarters in or near New York, and they'd probably love to have you, so long as you aren't very stupid, very ugly, or very much interested in working for FOX.

I DID NOT EVER SAY THAT.

If you email back your interests and preferences to this address (which forwards to both [redacted] and Joss Whedon), I would be happy to dig around and see if I can ferret out any good internships. When I say good, I mean terrible, but at least your clothes stay relatively clean; there is no such thing as a good internship. Once I know what you are looking for, perhaps I could set you up some meetings with important people whose cuff links are so expensive they make you rather uncomfortable. Also, congratulations on getting an internship for this summer! Most kids your age are not nearly so far into
the industry, unless their last name is Spelling or Coppola.

...Are you a Coppola? If so, I recommend changing your last name, at least until the opportune moment. If you're one of the Spellings, I'm terribly sorry for your loss, and terribly sorry about the rest of your relations.

I DID NOT EVER SAY THAT.

I hope you have a good evening sir, and do get back to me soon, as I have much procrastinating to do, and surprisingly little to fill my time that isn't my actual job. I look forward to hearing from you again!

--The Crazy People You Emailed

Does this email annoy you as much as it does me? I send my best wishes to all you potential Whedon interns out there--based on this email, working for him would make me tired.