Graduate Student's Paper on Firefly's Cancellation

POSTED BY: Mactavius
UPDATED: Thursday, May 4, 2006 22:50
VIEWED: 6725
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MACTAVIUS

Tuesday, May 2, 2006 1:34 AM

I just completed a 15 page paper on Firefly for my Television Criticism class at UGA. If you want a copy of the cleaner original version (complete with all the footnotes this version left out) or 16 minute video clip I presented in class to support my argument, email me at mactavius@hotmail.com.

enjoy.

Geoff Carr
JRMC 8060
Final Project

Ideological Motives for Cancellation?: A Social Values Analysis of ‘Firefly’

Introduction
“The media are controlled by power. The imperative is to strip them of it, whether by taking the media over, or reversing them by outbidding the spectacle with subversive content.”
-Jean Baudrillard, 1981
Almost one year after the most cataclysmic attack against America the institution, 20th Century Fox debuted Firefly, an overt political allegory from the creative mind of Joss Whedon. Whedon was an emerging talent in Hollywood circles due to his revitalization of the campy and critically ignored film Buffy the Vampire Slayer into a popular television series that has been proclaimed as “a hard-edged, humorous assault on the shortcomings of liberal reform and the inherent flaws of American civil society” (Owen 2004). Whedon enjoyed further success with the equally lauded and financially successful Angel. Still, Firefly was to be his crowing achievement, and Whedon attests that it was “the source of probably more joy and pain than anything I’ve done. It was, to me, a new kind of storytelling” (Whedon 2002). He assembled a flawless ensemble cast and began to make the series of his dreams.
Nevertheless, Firefly never took off. It never managed to achieve a Nielson rating greater than 4.0, the score it earned for its debut episode The Train Job. The show’s numbers continued to languish over the next few months; it consistently placed among the least watched programs on the Fox network. On December 20, 2002, exactly three months after its premier, Fox aired both parts of the episode Serenity and ended Firefly’s brief network tenure. This, however, was not the end for the series, as it amassed a substantial cult Internet following that was instrumental in motivating Universal Studios to release Serenity, a motion picture adaptation of the series that featured every member of the (very enthusiastic) cast reprising their television roles .
This author holds no illusions that Firefly’s cancellation cannot be solely interpreted as a complete financial failure, for a capitalistic society almost always deems the dollar as definitive, and a “commitment to profit has, perhaps more than anything else, limited the range and quality of messages produced by the media” (Grossberg et al 1998). Though it would be unwarranted speculation to blame Fox outright for the show’s failure, there are several external factors contributing to the show’s demise, which included lack of advertising and air time during a traditionally unfavorable weekend timeslot. Most notably, it can be argued a lack of network support probably ended Firefly’s chance for success before the series even aired. 20th Century Fox was initially eager of the show’s prospects, greenlighting Whedon’s premise immediately in an effort to capitalize on his proven track record of providing financially successful youth-oriented programming. This attitude reversed when Fox executives were presented with the completed Serenity, a two-hour pilot episode for the series . Fox executives exhibited a great reluctance in airing Serenity, and instructed Whedon to essentially write a new pilot episode over the course of a single weekend, a story that would eventually become The Train Job . What inspired this reluctance? Speculation segues to postmodernism, the wonderful bastion that eviscerates all concepts of meaning, a battleground where “the text becomes a place where multiple interpretive experiences occur” (Denzin 1997). This paper supposes, supported by a thorough content analysis of the complete series, that Firefly confronted and challenged the prevalent ideological assumptions and motivations of the current administration, and such counter-he

FLORALBUNNY

Tuesday, May 2, 2006 5:01 AM

I miss McLuhan.

Wonder what he'd have made of the internet, and TV with so many channels.

"Global Village" is obsolete, as the "electronic fireplace" has split up, and so many of us are back in our separated spaces, but the separation is, this time, of a different kind.

We're able to yell through the chimneys at each other, but our new, electronically supported pseudo-isolation allows each of us to remain unseen, to take on persona(e)we could not maintain in a public setting, to misrepresent anything or everything about ourselves...

OMG, I left this fray long, long ago.

Have a virtual strawberry. They're fresh-picked. Drop the hull into the compost, please.

bun
~6/23~Serenity/Firefly Summer~9/30~
----- why's the rum gone? -----

VINTERDRAKEN

Tuesday, May 2, 2006 7:31 AM

Wow, Ive studied courses like that on the U, and man is it boring. Kudos for you and congratulations for finishing of this great paper.

You can’t stop the Signal.
Keep spreading the word about Firefly!

RUXTON

Tuesday, May 2, 2006 7:35 AM

MACTAVIUS:

This is brilliant stuff in its scope. I said what you said many years ago, but not many wanted to agree that Firefly was cancelled because of its blatant (and entirely correct) anti-gov't stance.

I suspect your grader(s) will not completely like what you wrote because of their involvement with government money, to whatever extent.

As a professional editor I was pleased and impressed with your use of language. I could not find serious fault (though I didn't get as deeply into your analyses as much as I'd have liked, about 3/4 through your paper -- too late at night), but did find this:

"As he threatens to end her life, Mal casually ends his life with a quick shot to his head."

PLEASE CHANGE IT TO THIS:
"As he threatens to end her life, Mal casually ends Dobson's life with a quick shot to his head."

Oh, and I suspect your reviewers won't like the use of "casually" in that sentence

Massive kudos, and thanks for sharing.

............G.F.

ELOISA

Tuesday, May 2, 2006 1:38 PM

This is fantastic - many, many things I have felt about Firefly and its cancellation for a very long time but have lacked the wherewithal to say. Kudos to you and I hope you do well in your course. (PS Please clear up the punctuation blips before handing in the final paper!)

~Zoë Eloisa

***
http://forums.ffonline.com/forumdisplay.php?f=19
Creative Writing

BUK

Tuesday, May 2, 2006 2:39 PM

I suddenly notice quite alot of what you have said is true between the alliance compared to the goverment.

Also you mentioned how the media is biased, reading that I could see that you are also biased in places.

Also theres a spelling mistake in the 5th paragraph
"and hire an eclectic crew to reside " Shouldnt that be "an electirc"?

RUXTON

Tuesday, May 2, 2006 10:07 PM

BUK:
Look up eclectic. Don't be so lazy. Do your homework!

Make your bed! Wash your clothes!

And ask yourself if an electric crew makes any sense at all.

RUXTON

Tuesday, May 2, 2006 10:07 PM

BUK:

Your own spelling mistakes are egregious:

There are no such words as ALOT and GOVERMENT.

Look 'em up.

BUK

Tuesday, May 2, 2006 11:20 PM

Shh! I'm suppose to be failing English and I'm doing my gorram hardest to live up to that expectation .

Also electric crew could mean other things I quote from answers.com
"Emotionally exciting; thrilling: gave an electric reading of the play.
Exceptionally tense; highly charged with emotion: an atmosphere electric with suspicion".

One last thing I'm well known for doing homework at the last minute and this wasn't last minute. This post was. So after looking around I now know what eclectic means, happy? I'm not I had to learn...

RUXTON

Wednesday, May 3, 2006 9:44 PM

Buk, you are forgiven. Thanks for the comeback.

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