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Politics of Firefly

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    Politics of Firefly

    Here's a link: http://www.affbrainwash.com/archives/020132.php

    And here's an extensive excerpt:
    Naming his ship Serenity, Mal takes on a crew, which includes a pilot, a mechanic, a mercenary, a preacher, a prostitute, and a fugitive doctor and his sister. A diverse band whose crimes almost solely revolve around a desire for freedom, the crew of Serenity must endlessly dodge the ever-looming presence of the Alliance that threatens to close them down. The series' central theme seems to concern the ineptitude of strong central government and its tendency to oppress and stifle rather than free or secure. As Mal says, "That's what governments are for, [to] get in a man's way."

    Through Mal and his crew Whedon asks us to consider: What does freedom mean when the nearest government agent could be millions of miles away? Like the nineteenth century American West, civilization on the outer rim of the "verse" depends not on bureaucracy, but on natural law and contracts.

    Precisely because the centralized law is the very force that Serenity escapes, Mal must hold his ship afloat through a very rigorous sense of duty and loyalty; his crew is his life, and to defend them, he would do just about anything. Because of their basic human decency, Mal and his crew embody the responsible spirit of freedom. Here are some of Firefly's foundations for liberty, the foundations Mal upholds:

    Trade should be uninhibited. Operating under the precepts of free trade, Mal is a principled smuggler; while the government places barriers on trade, Mal believes the smuggling he does is honest work. As he tells a prospective client who is apprehensive about dealing with supposedly dishonest smugglers, "Seems to me there's nothing dishonest about getting goods to people that need 'em." That philosophy extends to mud, medical supplies, and in one delightful episode, cattle.

    The best protection is self-defense. Everyone in Whedon's universe is armed and ready to fight at the first sign of trouble; after all, if the government is too far away to protect you, or if it is itself the aggressor, someone must take up arms. Even the resident preacher will. As he says, while the Bible may be specific about killing, "It is, however, somewhat fuzzier on the subject of kneecaps."

    Prostitution is just another way to earn a living. Inara, the ship's prostitute, lends the band of smugglers "a certain respectability." Prostitutes, or companions as they are known in the story, are a highly organized, highly selective group of cultured and trained women. They are not forced into their work and carefully choose each of their clients out of a screened registry.

    The government is not always benevolent. The fugitive doctor, Simon, and his sister River are running from the Alliance. River was the subject of a government experiment and Simon helped her escape when he discovered the danger she was in. It is unclear what the government was trying to accomplish with the teenage girl, but what is clear is that River is left damaged, violated, and afraid.

    Contracts must be honored. On the outer rim of the Alliance, no government entity is accessible to uphold contracts or settle disputes. Even when dealing with clearly immoral and corrupt clients, Mal is sure to either provide the service he agreed to or return the money he was paid. Without such basic principle, the outer planets fall into lawlessness, and the Alliance might feel the need to step in and regulate; by honoring contracts, the outer rim stays free.
    I must admit that my impression of libertarianism is that it is pretty much standard far right policies, with some rhetorical flourishes for people who dislike religious scruples, whether about sex and drugs, or about bloodshed. Libertarianism likes to trace some founding fathers further back, but so far as I know, it really got under way during the Sixties, when lots of people were up in arms about Evil Big Government desegragating schools and enforcing voting rights, while others were disgusted at the Vietnam War and antidrug hysteria. Practically speaking, the Libertarian Party is only semiindependent, existing partly to pressure (some of) the Republicans by posing as an alternative. Sort of like the Communist Party to (some of) the Democrats.

    It appears that producer Tim Minear was and is a libertarian, as is the writer. To my unsympathetic eye, Firefly's cryptic political references look very much like the usual code words used by cryptoracists. I believe any such interpretation as advanced above is absurd stretching. What say you? (My view relegated to PS.)

    Here's a response at the same website:
    I thought it was derivative crap, recycling the stuff Whedon did over and over again in the late runs of Buffy and Angel:

    1. Mouthbreathing, passive-agressive supergirl who needs to eat a sandwich (see: Angel's X-Fred, Buffy, River).

    2. Soulful thug (see: Spike, Jayne).

    3. Obsessive near stalkerish "true love" with overloads of Angst (see: Buffy and Angel and Spike, Mal/Inara, Wes and Fred).

    4. Excessive and cynical nihilism. Buffy, Angel, Spike, and Captain Mal are all cold, compassionless, ruthless and cynical leaders who stand for nothing but being right all the time and cool.

    5. Ludicrous plot elements that are overly campy (horses in space, cap and ball revolvers, "kewl moments" where the hero murders someone) etc.

    [Confederate Chic, unique to Firefly]

    6. Lack of any coherent plot threading through the series (see: Buffy and Angel's last two years).

    7. Emphasis on "shocking" the audience with violence and rape in particular (see Buffy's rape by Spike and her falling in love with him due to said rape) in lieu of actual stories.

    8. Wildly ridiculous styles of leadership (Captain Mal plays favorites among his crew, overtly) that don't reflect human relationships in real life and aren't very interesting on screen.
    Of course, everybody's view differs. To me, it is just ridiculous to think that Mal could reaffirm Jayne's loyalty by threatening to kill him. (I think that would come under #8 above.) Other people think that sort of stuff is just too cool for words. Anyhow, a lot of this seems deadly accurate, though I would add a #9 about how everyone stops to listen to the gag lines, even in the action sequences! But, I'm not a Buffy/Angel viewer and a lot of this reflects on those shows. I suspect this is pretty accurate, barring any quibbles about the proper amount of emphasis. What say you?

    pm

    PS Firefly was pretty much all about a revisionist West in which the Civil War was not about slavery. This was just disguised by the spaceships. This magic of literary license means Jesse James AKA Cap'n Mal was not a racist terrorist but a freedom fighter. The Reavers are Injuns who really are only good if dead. The only thing we really know about the Alliance is that Chinese are supposed to be half the top dogs. Apparently that is supposed to be enough for us to condemn it. Zoe was Mammy with tits and guns. Book was a mad combination of a semipacifist religious quietist and Black Confederate. Yes, there were hints that Book was once an Alliance thug. In the show, he spouted more States' Rights type political dreck than any other character. And sure enough, the Black (Would be?) Rapist wandered out of Gone with the Wind to pay a visit.

    (By the way, there was a handful of Black Confederates. These loons were utterly insignificant in comparison to the slaves who joined the Union army, or resisted by flight, slowdown and sabotage. But there is a certain kind of person who can't fail to make a big deal about this. Yes, Harry Turtledove, I'm talking about you.)

    #2
    Any discussion of Firefly as an extension of politics tends to be off beam. Whedon isn't writing a political tract and neither is Tim Minear. What they are writing is a western and westerns conform to particular archetypes. In Firefly's case the archetypes are so accurate, they make my teeth hurt.

    *The anti-hero (Mal)
    *The mysterious stranger (River)
    *The warrior (Zoe)
    *The doctor (Simon)
    *The schoolteacher/aka the peacemaker (Kaylee)
    *The dumb sidekick/aka the Walter Brennan type (Jayne)
    *The clever sidekick (Wash)
    *The preacher (Book)
    *The tart with the heart of gold (Inara)

    A science fiction setting is used because science fiction is in itself archetypal: the frontier.

    Politically, it speaks to the frontier struggle of being forced into becoming 'civilised' but it's not much more than that. It's a western.

    It's an extremely literal show.

    Comment


      #3
      I found the essay intriguing, and while I'm not completely (or, for that matter, at all) familiar with libertarianism, I do think it's a fairly accurate breakdown of the show's politics. Then again, there were fourteen episodes, so one could probably argue that Mal would have been a Republican. :/

      (And my only comment regarding that Firefly-bashing response from the website: Now is a time for quiet, silent contemplation.)

      Comment


        #4
        I read these as a yea and a nay, for a split verdict.

        Thanks to Shep'sSocks and Kiarasayre for the input.

        pm

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