» Re: firefly 'objects in space'

slashedupinsanity:

pulpofiction:

slashedupinsanity:

First off, I think you’re awesome. Really, and truly, I love that you seem fired up to change the world. But I also think you’re overlooking a lot of aspects of this show.

• Zoë and Wash defy gender roles in their relationship. Wash doesn’t have a problem with his wife being aggressive and somewhat manly. The only problem he ever had was that she always went on missions with Mal. And Mal’s just that sexy.
• The Operator was black, so what? Whedon in no way reinforces that because he’s black, he’s going to threaten a white girl with rape. The Operator does so because his character is psychotic and he enjoys hurting people, which River points out at the end. Also, Niska had a thick Russian accent. And Badger was white.
• The most powerful character on the show is a girl: River Tam.
• Kaylee may like Simon, but she won’t accept less than what she’s worth. Anytime he’s been disrespectful to her, she turns her back on him. I love this about her.
• Just because Mal constantly calls Inara a whore has nothing to do with what the screenwriters deem acceptable. Dialogue shows us what kind of character Mal is and how other people view Companions as a whole, as well as how Mal feels about Inara. To me, it’s like pulling on her pigtails, grabbing for her attention. He just wants to ruffle her feathers the best way he can come up with. I also find it interesting that it does ruffle her feathers.
• I don’t know what you’re expecting from a show with a short run. I also don’t see why you think Zoë has any character development to go through, if you don’t say the same about Mal. Both are rather static…
• You’d have to elaborate on Mal’s role of “great white male protector.” I honestly don’t see this suggested anywhere besides your observation.

If you’re looking for it, you can see whatever you want, but I think Firefly is the farthest away from being racist or even misogynist. In fact, I think it takes strides away from it.

I’m not writing this to pick any fight, but I’m always up for healthy debate. (I’ve read a decent argument that Whedon has strong female characters, but also has a tendency to portray them as the most broken down.)

Yay! Discussion time. :D this might be making my day

First off, Zoe. I know the show only lasted 14 episodes, but I feel like she was the most under-used and under-explored of the main cast. Simon and River have their thing going on, Wash has his fight with Mal (and consequent insecurities), Inara has her fights with Mal, Jayne has his moments (and episode) and Kaylee has her shiny moments (like Shindig). Zoe’s character seems the most static - she supports Mal and loves Wash and snarks a lot and then what? I wish the show had lasted longer so that we could see what the writers would have done with her. Mal’s character development is also kind of static, but his personality gets explored more than Zoe’s, being the main character. What do you think?

 Second, the ‘whore’ thing. I remember Inara in ‘out of gas’ specifically laying down a rule that Mal can’t call her a whore and then he does it all the time… I mean, I don’t think the concept of slutwalk and reclaiming certain words for empowerment exists in the ‘Verse, so him calling Inara a whore over and over again just seemed degrading. There are ways to poke fun that tease and then there are ways to poke fun that are just disrespectful. She has a legitimate business enterprise, he calls her a whore; and then when she calls him a petty thief, Mal gets all upset. Double standard… I think, actually, that Mal calling Inara a whore all the time is my least favorite part of the show, because Mal is such a relentless jerk about it. Ungh.

Third: Jubal Early. like i said earlier in my poorly-structured rant, having the black character threaten, beat, and try to kidnap the white female characters just perpetuates some… nasty, terrible attitudes about race. Now I’m not saying that the show writers have these attitudes; just that they’re not helping our society think differently about race relations and racial perspectives. And, re:Niska, same thing, but lighter and softer impact than Jubal Early.

and a quick bit about the great white male protector: you know the old trope about the white man’s burden; has to civilize the savages, protect the women, and lead the world? Jubal as a character challenged that in Mal.

Thoughts?

I actually squealed when I saw your reply. Like “She didn’t take it the wrong way! Yes! Debate!” :D But on to business.

I think you’re absolutely right. I would’ve like to have more about Zoë, because it’s true that we see more with the other characters. All we really get is that she’s married to Wash, and she was in the war with Mal. Though Book, on the other hand, does get lots of backstory love in a comic. So why couldn’t Zoë?

Maybe Mal’s just a jerk. Like Whedon was like “Damn, he’s TOO likeable.” I’d like to revisit the scene where Inara calls him a “petty thief” just in my interest on their relationship. It is degrading, I wonder if it’s also true for both of them. I get your point entirely on this count. I have a habit of calling my best friend a “whore” completely out of love so it doesn’t faze either of us, so that makes me gloss over the word. Hmm. Out of random interest, what could Mal have done besides calling her a “whore”?

Jubal doesn’t seem too problematic to me, mostly because the heroes themselves have a balance of races. If the Serenity crew was all white, I’d be right beside you on this. But when you have someone as despicable as Jayne Cobb (who appears white), it seems okay to me to have a psychotic bad guy…. who happens to be black. (Irrelevant sidenote: Jayne’s actually my favorite male character, but he’s terrible, man. Always money, money, money.)

I’ve heard the trope, but I don’t see the parallel.This is exceedingly lame to say but Mal’s best friend (Zoë) is black. So I don’t see why he’d have the mentality of “white man’s burden.” Nor of saving women - he had run-ins with Patience and Saffron and has no issues with them as women, just that they wronged him.

On note of “poorly structured rant” - I feel bad, yo, like I attacked you with your guard down. :P Sorry about that! Also, you have no ask box and that makes me bad. But completely irrelevant to the discussion.

more more more!
I’m just going to number it for convenience.
1. Zoe: let’s start a letter-writing campaign to get a backstory comic for Zoe… because those work so well when it comes to Firefly. (sigh) 

2. Ha, I used to do that too! But back to the subject at hand… I don’t know what else Mal could have called Inara, but to me, he just seems intent on shaming her sexuality (a lot of the characters do, at times) because she has a certain career that is not ‘acceptable’. Even if he didn’t call her a whore, there are all the snarky ‘honest business’/’wouldn’t want to keep you from your clients’-type comments that Mal makes, and… yeah, like I said; it’s my least favorite part of the show. It’s great that Joss Whedon shows a woman in charge of her sexuality in such a way, but it’s tempered by Mal’s reaction to Inara’s sexuality. I’m happy to chalk it up to Mal’s character, but I just wish Inara had taken a stronger stance on that particular rule of hers. 

Side note: Damnit, there would be so much more to talk about if it hadn’t been CANCELED

3. You see racially-balanced cast, I see two minority cast members and a distinct lack of prominent (other than a few background extras) Chinese or Asian characters in a world where the two main countries of the space race were China and the United States, and everything is in Chinese. This, unfortunately, is just a sad fact of television; that minorities are frequently underrepresented on TV unless there are shows that are specifically targeted towards them. (Except, yay! A:TLA.) We’ve been talking about black characters, but I’d just like to point out the overall lack of Asian characters as part of this discussion. I know you don’t agree with this analysis, but the depiction of a black man as the potential rapist of white women made me extremely, extremely uncomfortable, especially since that, that very concept, is instrumental to the historical perception of black men by white people in the United States. I know people who believe (today!) that the Ku Klux Klan was created to ‘protect white women from black rapists’. What? This episode, removed from context, is fine. It shows an evil character threatening some good characters. In the context of race relations in this country, it is very, very problematic. (also, my favorite character is Simon. this means war.)

And, re: Mal being the great white protector; I’m not saying he is - just that ‘Objects in Space’ gave off, strongly, that very distinct flavor. Mal is incapacitated, so the evul black man hits his white women and beats up the weaker men. 
Oh, YoSaffBridge! I read this really, really strongly-worded analysis of Firefly that talked about how YoSaffBridge’s untempered use of her sexuality to get what she wanted was threatening to Mal and in direct conflict with Inara’s patriarchally-controlled sexuality (i.e. regulated by the Alliance) and that whole scene at the end of ‘our mrs. reynolds’, with Mal tackling her and pinning her to the floor, was full of rape fetish fuel. I think YoSaffBridge is a really interesting character precisely because she’s using her sexuality as a weapon of sorts, and is completely unapologetic about it. Hmmmmmmm #moreanalysis #mustknow

And, I mean, overall, I really liked Firefly; I ended up hunting down and reading most of the comics and watching Serenity, but it’s being tempered by the aforementioned concerns. Boo.