researching Firefly
POSTED BY: EricaMarsh
UPDATED: Monday, August 15, 2005 04:57
VIEWED: 16317
PAGE 2 of 4
Quote:
Originally posted by SamWibatt:
On edit: I had a look at your blog/profile - cool! I too am a grad student (but unlike you, an old fart, and in Computer Science). I see you have Terry Goodkind on your favorites list - I've read all his stuff, and if you ever did want to do research into utterly confused, sick sexuality, there's plenty of material there without having drag it into Firefly. This set against the main characters' almost completely platonic, borderline saccharine romance. That Goodkind stuff is a wild ride, for sure.
Goodkind is a whole other can of worms. Goodkind's been my favorite since 95, I was 13. I was within a breath of doing my thesis on Gookind, but decided I loved the books too much to write about it. It is my joy book.
Speaking of Goodkind, did you finish Chainfire yet?
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Quote:
Originally posted by EricaMarsh:
Speaking of Goodkind, did you finish Chainfire yet?
I did. Not bad, but not his best. The more Goodkind makes his books vehicles for his personal politics, the less I like them - I agree with some of what he has to say philosophically, but his narrative quality goes out the window when he feels like he has to make an Important Point. I could barely finish Naked Empire because of that. My guess is that he got a bop on the snoot for that book - readers complaints and all - and Chainfire has a bit of a wound-licking feel to it because here we find Richard braving all to prove to the world that he's Right. I've done a little bit of creative writing and lit-crit study, and the one lesson I took to heart was that what's important is not the author but the story. IMO Goodkind ignored that much to his own detriment. Still, I think Chainfire was a decent read.
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I agree. When i started reading The Pillars of Creation I had to check the cover to make sure I was still reading Goodkind. I think I actually hated the book until the last fifty pages.
I just started Chainfire, but I'm kind of upset that he took Kahlan out of the action. She's why I love the books! I'm reading it between course materials, so I'm still only about 150 pages into it. I hope to finish before the end of the semester.
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Oh, jeez - I'm sorry, I assumed you'd read the book. Looks like I didn't do any real spoiling. Yikes, I'll be more careful & ask next time.
Heh, sorry to hijack the thread, too.
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You're fine. If I were REALLY into it, finishing it wouldn't be a semester long thing. I would put off homework, even if the homework consists of watching Buffy, Angel, and Firefly, to read Chainfinre if I really wanted to. I just haven't been sucked into it as much as I was with the first six books.
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Quote:
Originally posted by EricaMarsh:
DO you remember the scene where Inara braids Kaylee's hair? That's sexual, very sexy if you ask me. Also, the ways in which Inara is more 'at ease' when providing services for a woman than for the men. Anything remotely sexual you can think of.
I hope to present at the Slayage Conference in 2006. http://www.slayage.tv/SCW/index.htm
Dang, this thread took off before I could put my $.02 in. Oh well, here goes anyway.
The Kayle/Inara thing seems to me more 'sisterly' than sexual. Kaylee clearly looks up to Inara, in part because of the lavish and exotic world Inara works in. Kaylee's from a backwater world, and cherishes every bit of 'fancy' she can get. ( See Shindig )
Per the hair braiding thing..I've always found it relaxing when women brush or braid each other's hair. In fact, much like Mal, I wouldn't mind Inara doing my hair either.
" They don't like it when you shoot at 'em. I worked that out myself. "
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Quote:
Originally posted by AURaptor:
In fact, much like Mal, I wouldn't mind Inara doing my hair either.
Hehe, when I was younger and single and less bald I had a foot and a half of ponytail partly for this kind of reason.
Good point about Kaylee looking up to the "fancy" world, and how that affects her relationship to Inara. She does seem to crave the finery - even if her idea of it (that awesome ruffly dress in Shindig, the decorative plate in Safe) looks cheap to the stuck-up rich folk. I just *loved* how she ended up being a big hit at the ball by talking about engines.
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Well, I havn't really thought too much about female sexuality in FIREFLY (I'm more interested in Joss's trademark dialogue), but here are some of my initial thoughts off the top of my head.
The relationship between Wash and Zoe I find to be an interesting relationship as depicted on tv. There have been interracial relationships on tv, but I've never seen one fictional or in real life, where it's white dude/black chick. Usually it's the other way around, which is evident by hundreds of sites of white women into black men. This whole dynamic of the woman being the agressive type while the male is more passive is interesting enough. But the fact that she's a deep ghetto brown while he's as white bread as you can get adds a more complex dimension to their relationship.
Personally, I don't think race is a factor in the FIREFLY universe. I think something like racism has vanished 500 years in the future, and that most of the human struggles and biases are of class and a vertical nature (as seen in 'Serenity' ,'Shindig', 'Jaynestown' and 'Out of Gas'). And that the reason Zoe married Wash is the same reason Jessica Rabbit sticks by Roger. "He makes me laugh."
You seem to have Inara covered, although I think the hair scene with Kaylee was more along the lines of friend giving another friend a perm in prep for a big date, as opposed to a pseudo-lesbian moment. With Kaylee, she's innocence personified. And in a weird way, she's so innocent that sex doesn't seem to phase her that much. Maybe she lived in a really sexually liberal environment to really be phased by sex. And that Simon is a catalyst for her to finally deal with the emotions and depression that comes with sex that she's been ignoring all her life.
As for River, I agree that she's more of a rape victim than a person with a developed sense of sexuality. But I imagine if the series went on, and she learned to cope with her mental rape, that she would become more confident in herself and learn to love in the erotic sense, like any rape victim. Right now, I think she get's off more on the wavelength and emotions of sex, rather than the act itself, as seen in 'Objects in Space'.
And that's all I got. Hope it helps you out.
"NO HAI ES BANDAI. THERE IS....NO.....BAND. AND YET....WE HEAR A BAND."
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Ericamarch-
I was pretty exited to read your post considering that I finished a paper on Firefly last semester that I also hope to present at the next Slayage conference. I'd love to see it packed with presentations on Firefly. Having said that, I think that you're onto a really solid topic here. It sounds like the argument that you're getting at (and has been echoed in some of the other posts) is that the female characters on Firefly are comfortable with their own sexuality. That's not a simple argument considering how many characters (and individuals) aren't. Correct me if I'm misreading. If that's the point that you're going with, I think that you have a strong basis for multiple arguments here.
I agree with your assessment that the hair scene between Kaylee and Inara can be read as a sexually charged experience. The cinematography (sp?) in the shots between the two of them in that scene reinforces it, and Mal's question about Inara "servicing" crewmembers lends you textual support. In terms of an academic reading, it doesn't matter a bit if the characters think that it is or if the writers/director intended the subtext to be there, you can still argue for it.
If you're looking at how each of these women is comfortable with her own sexuality, you might consider defining how each of them expresses it. This applies to both their sexual relationships and their everyday non-sexual relationships and activities. You could make the argument that their sexuality is what allows them to exist as strong, confident, empowered women. It's a strong feminist argument.
Something that you might consider is contrasting the comfort in their sexuality that the female characters demonstrate throughout the series with the comfort/discomfort of the male characters. What would a comparision of the way Mal and Inara view their own sexuality yield? Or Jayne and Kaylee? Zoe and Wash? Kaylee and Simon? YoSafBridg and Jayne? It might not be the direction you want to take your research, but it might give you a concrete structure to work with.
Other directions you might not want to go include comparing the female sexuality in Firefly with the female sexuality in other Whedon series. Are there similarities between the relationship that Inara and Kaylee have and the relationship that Willow and Tara have or Willow and Kennedy have? This one might be a stretch, but it does give you the oppurtunity to ground your research in the ample material already available in Buffy Studies. Actually, that might be a disadvantage since it means a lot more reading. Take it as you will.
As for River, I tend to read her as an innocent. I think that the scene in "Out of Gas" where she experiences the sexual relationship between Wash and Zoe but runs from it demonstrates that. Similiarly, the cut scene from "Our Mrs. Reynolds" where she tells Simon that she wants to get married shows her complete lack of understanding in these things. I agree with everyone else who's posted that discussing River and sexuality just seems icky and wrong. The rape metaphor might give you a strong reading, but I'm not certain how much support you'll find for it. I suspect that it's something that might have been developed later in the series, but as it stands, there isn't enough there for me.
Overall, I think you've got a lot of directions to go and a lot of possibilities. This is a nice take on Firefly for a research project, but I suspect that you're going to wind up with too much material to tackle in a single paper. I'm thinking . . . disertation? Did I spell that right? Oh well. Regardless of how you decide to narrow your focus, I think that you can draw on some of the feminist readings of Buffy as a means of support and a framework for your paper. It'll give you a grounding in the previous research and let you enter the conversation. I hope this helps some.
I'm just wondering, you mention that you're in a Buffy Studies class. Is it the course at Middle Tenn. State or is there another one that I don't know about?
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I think a more interesting discussion would be the role of women in the Firefly “society.” It seems that most scifi futuristic films depict a society where women are considered the equal to men, as sort of an aspect of the enlightened culture of the future. But in Firefly there is a much more complicated social role played by women. Women really seem to be somewhat objectified by society. In the “backwoods” planets women seem to play a subservient role to men, and the existence of Companions as a legitimate social position seems to suggest a society where women are even objectified in the more advanced and presumably enlightened “core” planets.
This is a little off topic but I think it would interesting to do an aerodynamic analysis of Serenity. If I had the time, I might try to schematize Serenity and build an IR model so that I can fly it in a simulated environment. In the first episode while running from the Reavers they did a “full burn in atmo.” I suppose that means that they turned on their interstellar or interplanetary propulsion system. And Zoe made some technobable warning concerning a “blowback” or whatnot. But I was thinking what she should have been concerned with is how many pieces the ship might have ended up in. If this propulsion can provide accelerations such that interplanetary flight could be achieved in a matter of days, then you’re talking about some pretty horrendous velocities. Quickly accelerating to those kinds of velocities in a dense earth-like atmosphere would be something like superheating a tomato and hurling it against a brick wall. Nothing we could make today would survive that kind of stress. If I had an IR model I might could play around with some coefficients and see what kind of properties the haul material of Serenity would need to have. Of course it would all be quite academic and of no practical use, but just for fun.
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