Tim Minear reveals another unfilmed FF episode
POSTED BY: Blinker
UPDATED: Wednesday, January 11, 2006 07:31
VIEWED: 54391
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If this was truly a legitimate episode suggestion, then I imagine it was going to be polished up a LOT more.
There's some holes in that story that have me cringing.
Not so much the idea of rape, although the scenario does have some rather badfic connotations. (I agree with Jacqui there.)
Nor the Zoe thing, because of everyone aboard Serenity she is probably most equipped to deal with a traumatized, sane, adult female. Kaylee's too emotional, River too unstable. Not to mention, who knows what she has seen in the war?
But the rape-kit of death... uh... Not seriously, right?
What creeps me out is the whole handkiss idea.
A healthy happy Inara is a whore but a traumatized, abused Inara is suddenly worth more than that? I'd expect Inara waking up at that moment and slapping Mal square in the face for the implication.
I could imagine that being filmed more subtly than it is described here, making it more obvious that it's a throwaway line he doesn't mean, or something..
But that's still a really clumsy way to highlight the whole sex vs. power vs. morals vs. hypocrisy thing. At least when it comes to Mal's perspective.
I agree with you about most all of what you said, this would be a good episode cause most if not all we have see is the alliance its crulety and the core and how bad they are... not much badness is shown of the freedomes of the rim with the exception of some criminals and savagase they could out fly... now it truely show the potesial crulety of it. don't get me wrong i love Inara she is my favorite character... it hurt to read that, but she is strong and inside probibly the only thing that kept her alive was the fact that she knew she had killed her violators. she is a strong woman and a real fighter and protector much like mal only she fights the instict to become tied to this family so she leaves. and i agree Zo would be best equipt and she would help Inara trying to keep mal out seeinga as that might just be a moment inara would not want to see mal.
now for the whole rape kit of death thing as you put it i think it is ok, i would want to kill any one that touched me. i am sure i am not the only woman who feels that, and i think it would be a good idea and probibly a known fact amongst some folk in the core worlds that some compainions are traind in the arts of poison. it is a steriotyped thing you know poison and women. I am sure that is how the crew found out that she had something that could kill a rapest, also Inara even if she is a buddhist always seemed to want some sort of revenge. like with niska her words were something like "i am sory you did not kill that (insert manderin curse here)" yeah so goal drivin and strong would not die from rape only change even from reavers.
Ok next I think if you looked at it the way you looked at it i agree with you but i looked at it another way... i thought Mal told her she was a whore not a lady and basicly the hand kissing is a sign of a lady. She got taken and that was the last thing she heard from him that she was not a lady... they get her back but broken and he feels awful knowing he was wrong she is a lady he was just being a mean jerk! and so as a read in another journal about this he gets on his knees and kissis her hand to show that she is a lady, and that he is sorry perhaps. we all know he cares for her and she said she was going to leave if we assume that this did not take place that much time after the last episodes we cans y that perhaps Mal was even angry at her for leaving and was just being a royal butt. Any way i put me in his place, he loves her that is a givin since not many would go face reavers for just any one. and since he loves her he want to help her show her he loves her and stuff.
I know that the two character have problems with one another... but the main problem is not mal's rudeness, but rather Inaras hesitation and even fear of getting tied down. he was going to tell her before that he loves her but she told him she is leaving. So yes i think bad way to get together or to eve
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Huh...
I kind of looked at the relationship between Mal and Inara as a bit childish in some ways.
Look at little kids in a school yard. A little boy, liking a particular little girl but not having learned yet how to show that appropriately may simply hit the girl or put gum in her hair etc... It's the only way he has of interacting with her. It's not that he wants to hurt her. It's simply that he feels the need to be around her and having her angry at him is better than having her ignore him and he has not yet learned enough to intereact with her at a more mature level yet.
After Serenity Valley, Mal became emotionaly closed off in many ways. Then Inara comes along and he feels things for her but, much like the little boy, has no way to express those emotions "properly" at the moment. But because they are so strong, those emotions will come out. One way or another which takes the form of their adversarial relationship.
It's in times of great danger that we see his defenses come down and his true feelings come to the surface as in the scene where he asks her to take the civilians and run in the shuttle towords the end of the pilot episode.
dc4bs
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Quote:
Originally posted by dc4bs:
Huh...
I kind of looked at the relationship between Mal and Inara as a bit childish in some ways.
Look at little kids in a school yard. A little boy, liking a particular little girl but not having learned yet how to show that appropriately may simply hit the girl or put gum in her hair etc... It's the only way he has of interacting with her. It's not that he wants to hurt her. It's simply that he feels the need to be around her and having her angry at him is better than having her ignore him and he has not yet learned enough to intereact with her at a more mature level yet.
After Serenity Valley, Mal became emotionaly closed off in many ways. Then Inara comes along and he feels things for her but, much like the little boy, has no way to express those emotions "properly" at the moment. But because they are so strong, those emotions will come out. One way or another which takes the form of their adversarial relationship.
It's in times of great danger that we see his defenses come down and his true feelings come to the surface as in the scene where he asks her to take the civilians and run in the shuttle towords the end of the pilot episode.
dc4bs
Ok i agree with you on this or rather i used to think that thier relatiionship was like that but it is only a little like that. Mal was raised by his mom and no dad just plenty of ranch hands as exampels of a male person. he probibly knows a thing or two about ladys, he was just some what hardend by the war and well Inara suported unification.
that is one thing between them, they don't hate each other or even dislike each other a little bit he just likes to tease her, not because he is no good with woman folk but because Inara has sort of built this who its business not personal relationship thing to sort of protect her emotionaly. she was not looking for ties when she left she was looking for solitude and freedom even. she was trying to grow by her lonesome and some how this crew and ship became her family and home. two things she was not looking for, yet she found she had, and was trying so hard to pretend she did not have. The whole invasion of privacy and even haveing her partake in criminal activities with the crew, that was mal pushing her to test her and to break her lie. that was mals way of saying its personal admit it and inata saying no it business so quit it! Then in situations where she dissagred with mal she tried to use her vote as if she were part of the crew even if the whole time she denide it. for example when mal was going to throw of the Tams she said she would go too, and mal not wanting her to try and threatin him when she always played it like she was not part of the crew basicly said fine you don't want to be here any way and you don't belong here. (I am painting Inara like a real coward and a flake but in reality she had her good reasons to act this way.) Mal also has a sort of backgroud of being a tough love sort of guy, he yells and is hard on the people he cares about the most. he is just hard with each of them in his own way, with inara he really, really likes her... and the both know they like each other they just get caught in the silly game of you love me -no i dont- fine i dont love you either- yes you do-and you love me- no i dont now leave me alone-fine what ever but you still love me-and you love me but we are sooo not going to talk about it ok- what ever you love me like i said-you are anoying! and disrespectful-you sleep with other people even though you dont love them- so sex is not bad, stealing is!- at least its honest not a big lie- what do you care its none of your business!- i dont like you your a whore - i am not a whore and so much for being honest!- whore- petty- whore- OUT!- this is my shuttel- i am renting it so out!- Fine! we are landing in an hour(you know i did not mean it you just sort of get under my skin but i like you and respect you)-thank you now leave so i can get ready for my 'whoring' (you know i dont want to talk about it and all you d
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I'm a delicate soul, if they had filmed that I would've stopped watching the show. Break her heart, chop off an arm, even kill her, but for god's sake, rape?
Reavers are my least fave thing in the verse and this would have put me off for good!
I am sure it would have been fantastic story-telling though - if it was allowed on air and this isn't a wind-up.
extremely dimensionally transcendental
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Emma that theoretically smacks of cowardice. FF was never the "Leave it to Beaver" family flying thru space in a perfect universe. It was dark and very modernthinking scifi, where people are reduced down to their basic instincts instead of being the enlightened noble-hearted futuristic types from Star Trek. They say 1 in 5 women in the US are raped in their lifetime. You think that'll change dramatically even after we start flying into space?
If instead of Inara (theoretically), it had been a character from any show you casually watch in passing and whom you could care less about, would the storyline have been bareable?
I think if the ep had ever been made and aired, it would have been the singlemost thoughtprovoking treatment of the subject I'd ever theoretically seen. But alas, the show ceases to be.
No show on television these days that isn't a sitcom or a happy family 'qualude' avoids the subject. All your cop, doctor, and lawyer shows shamelessly exploit the subject every week or month or so. And those constitute damned near everything on TV it seems. Well, those percentages aren't counting reality shows. And even those now are getting into rape (MTV's real world?). It virtually never shows up in scifi. When it has (like in BSG), it's just tacky.
XG
No such thing as gravity. The "Earth-that-was" just sucks.
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Quote:
Originally posted by XeroGravity:
Emma that theoretically smacks of cowardice. ....
If instead of Inara (theoretically), it had been a character from any show you casually watch in passing and whom you could care less about, would the storyline have been bareable?
No such thing as gravity. The "Earth-that-was" just sucks.
Cowardice it may be but I don't care. The one thing I draw the line at watching is sexual abuse. That's my problem not yours.
It wouldn't have made the slightest bit of difference which character it was, or indeed, what show. I can't cope watching, reading or hearing about any form of sexual abuse. Personally, I think that makes me a healthy human being.
extremely dimensionally transcendental
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For those of you calling us cowards for disliking this:
We like Firefly because of who the characters are, and because of the tone of the show. If Mal was all happy fun, or River was sane, or Kaylee was a total bitch or not even there, it wouldn't be the same show. Same for if Inara was a quivering wreck instead of the defensive, professional Companion she is.
Furthermore, after Objects in Space this episode would be very out of place. Even after the BDM, assuming that to be the end of season 2. Which means either this episode would have been really out of place and thus none too good, or the series would have had to take a dramatic turn for the darker over a longer period of time to fit this in.
Saying "If the show was very different, I wouldn't like it" is different from saying "Waah, bad stuff happened to Inara."
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To me, shying away from this is cowardice. That isn't meant to some subversive promotion of rape. It's just hipocrisy. Laundry list time... what have we seen in the show? Shootings, stabbings, torture by electrocution, and Mal's ear cut off.
Is any of this less monstrous and barbaric then rape? It's funny how desensitized to that kind of savagery people become when they find it entertaining.
It's ok when it's one of the above but never rape. And the notion that women who've had that horror visited on them should expect it to never show up in good storytelling because of it's emotional significance doesn't fly with me. Murder, torture, etc... all of that is ok but no rape, never rape. Newp. Women are 50 percent plus of the marketing demographic.
Plenty of people have had friends and loved ones die senselessly (many having been tortured and murdered), and reenacting it is run-of-the-mill fare for everyday TV. It's ok... they can bare it.
I think IF this had ever made it into the screen, it would have been one of the most interesting things I'd ever seen on TV. Mal routinely calls Inara a whore... she is, afterall, a "high class" hooker, if there is such a thing. So very Geisha. He's obviously attracted to her, but disgusted by the way she sells her carnal treasure (oh virtue, where forth art thou?). He's living in a time where her profession is regarded as a thing that is prestigious. We'll probably see that become a reality of our day ~ probably before my young life is at an end, the way things seem to be going. 10 years ago "pimp" was a title on par with a child molester. Now it's hip to be "pimp".
Sorry... maybe I'm prematurely out of step with the generational gap but I will never "get it" when it comes to pimping being a cool thing.
That's part of the appeal to me where Mal is concerned. Even in an age where it's hip and the height of higher culture to be a "companion", he's a throwback to a time where you'd call a whore a whore. She's motivated by money to satisfy men's libidinous needs. And he does call her a whore all the time. That was a gutsy part of the show's plot in and of itself.
Only Whedon and Minear could have broached the subject on the next level (the whole Inara abduction and reaver gangrape thing). They were always "Take no prisoners" when it came to writing a truly good story (at least where Firefly is concerned). It would have been brilliant. That's why it got the deep-six.
Someone earlier in the thread asked how people would feel if it had been Jayne in place of Inara in this theoretical storyline. That is a line of thought worth pursuing. I have to admit, it was worthy of a chuckle (not the idea of it, rather the idea someone would suggest it). Manrape is infinitely more taboo (unless it's a prison shower scene with no soap-on-a-rope).
XG
No such thing as gravity. The "Earth-that-was" just sucks.
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It's not cowardice to object to a dramatic change in the tone of a show you like because of its tone. I'm not squeamish about rape, I just think that this scene is too dark for Firefly as is, and if Firefly were dark enough for this to fit in I wouldn't enjoy it.
As to those people on this thread who are squeamish, if indeed there are any, I agree with you there. But that's not what my issue is.
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Quote:
Originally posted by XeroGravity:
That's part of the appeal to me where Mal is concerned. Even in an age where it's hip and the height of higher culture to be a "companion", he's a throwback to a time where you'd call a whore a whore. She's motivated by money to satisfy men's libidinous needs. And he does call her a whore all the time. That was a gutsy part of the show's plot in and of itself.
I agree with pretty much everything you said, but the above part caught my interest.
Why is it so gutsy for Mal to make no distinction between an ordinary street (or brothel) prostitute and a Companion as defined by the show?`
I don't consider either immoral or offensive professions, btw, but I do think there is a difference.
Companions are highly educated and trained and their education does play a large role in their work, along with their bodies, in a way that isn't the case with the prostitutes that, say, Jayne visits.
Is her job only defined by the fact that sex is sold? Is the rest of the experience completely irrelevant? Is it automatically demeaning because she chooses to sell sex along with her other services?
I always considered the two different job titles to be somewhat like the difference between a restaurant and a hotel. You can get food at both places, but the hotel also offers you a lot more, and you can't just call it a restaurent anymore.
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