XKRISTINX'S BLOG
Inara Serra: Agency, Controversy and Sex-Work in Joss Whedon's Firefly Part 1
Thursday, April 6, 2006 12:53 AM
The following is the theoretical component I submitted along with my creative piece (Red Herring). Both were created for my Controversies in Feminism class. Both works focus on Inara Serra and her depiction as a Companion and sex-worker.* * * *
The Firefly phenomenon is an interesting one. How often does a canceled television program (which didn’t even finish its first season) sell millions of DVD’s and get turned into a major motion picture?
My answer to this is character. The distinct strength and qualities of Joss Whedon’s nine main cast members are the essence of true character. Nine people and the events that lead them to the tenth character Serenity, make for truly original television. Dry-wit, intensely dark at times and a recurring theme of loyalty create a specific vision, which Whedon is now infamous for.
Described by some as a space-western, Firefly explored Whedon’s vision of the future.
Colonized, yet dispersed in more ways then one. I decided to focus on the character of Inara Serra for several reasons.
First, in the future, if you’re a registered Companion your work is legal. Whedon makes a distinction between Companion’s and “common whores” – that distinction being an official license. Second, even though Serenity is crewed by noble war veterans, a preacher and a genius surgeon, Inara’s work as a Companion is what opens the most doors for the ship, granting her the nickname of the “ambassador”. Third, throughout the first and only season of Firefly, thick tension is evident between Mal and Inara. He has obvious issue with her “whore’n.” Inara’s main rebuttal is that of: “You have no call to try to make me ashamed of my job, what I do is legal.” Lastly, the issues generally surrounding Inara and her work as a Companion echo many of the sentiments of today. Whether Mal or Book, the conversations had on Firefly divulge interesting links that can be made to contemporary discourse surrounding sex-work.
It’s been suggested that Inara Serra’s character is based on courtesans and geishas. A courtesan is defined as a prostitute with a wealthy upper-class clientele, and a geisha is trained to entertain men with conversation, dance, and song. But as Whedon’s work often does, subtext makes for a polysemic reading of Inara. As put by Joy Davidson:
As much as Inara reflects the past, she is equally a contemporary Everywoman, or, more accurately, Everywhore: liberalism’s enterprising dream-girl, radical-feminism’s oppressed victim, the conservative right’s sinful temptress. . .and let’s not forget, popular culture’s love-struck intimacy-phobic, “I-gotta-be-free” girl, too.
To any viewer watching Firefly, Inara can be any one, or all of these things. All of these views are also mirrored in her relationships with the crew of Serenity. Mal see’s her as an oppressed victim, “ . . . you think following rules will buy you a nice life, even if the rules make you a slave.” Books initial presence was encountered by “Have you come to lecture me on the wickedness of my ways?” Which immediately integrated the reality of biblical whoredom. One relationship that is not displayed in Davidson’s work is the relationship she has with Kaylee, one of admiration and even encouragement, which is evident throughout the series.
One particular example ends in Kaylee saluting Inara with the send-off: “Have good sex!” This example is one I would refer to as being sex-positive. Besides Kaylee the only other reference to a sex-positive existence is by Inara in encountering Mal after he’s had sex with Nandi—an old friend of Inara’s, “One of the virtues of not being puritanical about sex is not being embarrassed afterwards,” she says.
In the episode War Stories with the Councilor, and with Fess in Jaynestown, we see part of Inara’s craft as a Companion, which seems somewhat like the work of a therapist. The Councilor voices that her stress is about all the expectations put upon her, especially as a woman in a man’s world. For Fess it’s about his fathers expectations of what makes a man. In both th
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