Evil Firefly Haters

POSTED BY: Succatash
UPDATED: Wednesday, October 18, 2006 07:06
VIEWED: 55301
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WZ

Thursday, December 25, 2003 3:16 AM

I know nobody is reading this thread anymore - or would care about this if they did - but the ratsalad response to Firefly fans is finally up, only two months after it was promised. It can be found under "Firefly Redux" at www.ratsalad.com.

Willie Zaza

TEELABROWN

Thursday, December 25, 2003 3:50 AM

Gorram computer.

............................................................................................
"Freedom is the Freedom to say that 2+2 makes 4. If that is granted, all else follws"-Winston, 1984
Keep flyin', and remember, THEY can't take the sky from US!

TEELABROWN

Thursday, December 25, 2003 3:50 AM

Man, I would be killing my computer right now, that's so evil. Blasphemy for the eyes, ears, whatever! Man, if I had control over their little lives, they would be in so much pain they would die.... The ching wah tsao duh liou mahngs. Curse them, or those who made it. May they die like the rats they are!

We can keep flyin', even with that.

............................................................................................
"Freedom is the Freedom to say that 2+2 makes 4. If that is granted, all else follws"-Winston, 1984
Keep flyin', and remember, THEY can't take the sky from US!

SAINTPROVERBIUS

Thursday, December 25, 2003 8:21 AM

Well, Willy, there's one important thing you seem to be missing. The war with the Alliance isn't entirely like the Civil War at all. It's more like a colonist revolutionary war, one where the colonists manage to actually lose.

You have the Alliance which terraforms and seeds planets with settlers, then later forces them to "unify" under the banner of that Alliance. This is imperialistic expansion, no matter how you slice it. You have the planets fighting against this, not because they really want to form their own nation, but because each one of them wants their own localized sovereignty. After all, the forces against the Alliance were called "Independents", not "Confeds".

I think the reason most of us, including myself at first, walk away from this thinking the war mirrors the Civil War is because that's a motiff of the Western genre. After all, many of the Western movies are about displaced Confeds going west looking to escape the Union, but Firefly merely borrows that theme of a war displacing people and making the losers unhappy. It doesn't borrow every aspect of the Civil War, including the idea of abolition and so forth.

In fact, much like the end of the United States Revolution, there are still slaves and indentured servants in Firefly. This was mentioned in Train Job, the first aired episode where the the companion states that Mal is bonded to her in service.

It's all cute and good that you actually did some checking up in your old high school text books about the Civil War to write that piece, but you probably should have done a little more checking to see if those arguments actually fit what we're talking about here. It doesn't, which makes a vast chunk of the rants you've written faulter much like a house of cards built on a turn table.

Now, about the rape stuff. Have you bothered to post a rant before any of the Star Trek: The Next Generations movies were made? During the first two seasons of that show, Tasha Yar mentioned being from a planet where gang rape was the principle recreational activity - and ST:TNG was aired at 5PM Eastern Time here where I'm at. So, basically, you have a situation about gang rape, which is worse than rape, on a show that's aired three hours before Firefly was. So, if you haven't done so already, I think it might be time to start protesting any future movies they might make or any DVD releases they're planning on.

WZ

Thursday, December 25, 2003 3:45 PM

The reason I "walked away" from Firefly thinking it was supposed to invoke the memory of the Civil War is because Joss Whedon stated publicly that it was inspired by his (obviously scanty) reading about that war and the Reconstruction period that followed. He said it, I didn't. Your point about the American Revolution parallel is well taken, however the overall western motif of the show, along with Whedon's statements make it clear what period of US history he's referring to. Your statement that the various colonial planets on Firefly are more like the American colonies than the Confederacy makes sense to a point, but your suggestion that they want "localized sovreignty" sounds a lot more like the Confederacy than the 13 Colonies. The Colonies were struggling to CREATE a central government despite having little in common culturally and economically -Ben Franklin before the revolution suggested a "Grand Union" of the colonies, which failed to win enought support - while the Confederates were looking to DECREASE the power of the central government. There's your "localized sovereignty" - that's precisely what the Confederates wanted. Obviously no sci-fi show set in space, 500 years in the future is going to be an exact parallel to any period in American history and symbolism can be debated ad nauseum, but to deny what Firefly is about, while contradicting what its creator publicly said about it, is unsupportable.

As far as Star Trek having rape as a theme on one of its shows, I think I do remember that, but so what? A. Just because another show has an unpleasant subject doesn't make Whedon's treatment of the same subject OK - morality isn't graded on a curve. B. I don't believe Tasha Yar was shown to have no ill effects from having lived on a planet where gang rape was the major pastime. I believe she was shown to be scarred by the experience - which should be compared to Kaylee's reaction. I made both these points in the two Firefly articles I wrote. Please, read them more carefully before criticizing - neither of your points makes sense in the context of what I wrote OR what Joss Whedon himself has said.

And as far as my "checking my old high school textbooks" you might, if you had actually read the article thoroughly, have noticed my critique of the teaching of Civil War history in High Schools. I did in fact check some old textbooks, but they were from college, where I majored in History. Again, please read the articles before you critique them and especially before you fault my research - if re-watching old Star Trek: TNG episodes can be called "research" - Most of the research I've done in life has consisted of reading history books and articles, not watching re-runs of Star Trek, but then the standard of research among Firefly fans is made clear by the guy who can't remember the name of The Killer Angels and keeps confusing Jubal Early with George Pickett - (or was it J.E.B. Stuart? You'd have to ask him). Once again, another point made in the articles. I don't mind that you don't actually read the articles, it's that you tell me I'm wrong without understanding what I said. Either read them, understand them and then comment on them, or ignore them and keep watching Firefly, one or the other.

Willie Zaza

SERGEANTX

Thursday, December 25, 2003 4:33 PM

WZ, let me apologize for assuming your article was a parody. Apparently I was wrong.

SergeantX

"..and here's to all the dreamers, may our open hearts find rest." -- Nanci Griffith

KOBAYASHI

Thursday, December 25, 2003 4:58 PM

Man, talk about a looser with too much time on his hands. You can just picture this pimply-faced 40-year-old dweeb sitting in his Mom's basement typing away on his Commodore 64.

Seriously, is this guy for real? Does he really believe the idiocy that he spews? Sad, sad, little man...

This is the most obvious paragraph that points out this imbecile's lack of understanding:

Quote:
2. The Serenity looked like a diseased set of male genitals - at least in Flesh Gordon, the 70's comic soft-core version of the 30's Flash Gordonserial, they made the rocketship/phallus connection openly.

WZ

Thursday, December 25, 2003 5:25 PM

I'd just like to point out that we ALL, that is Kobayashi, Sergeantx and myself had nothing better to do on CHRISTMAS but look at this stupid website. This tends to put your "insecure idiot" and "loser with too much time on his hands" comments somewhat in perspective for me (and perhaps for you?). YET ANOTHER POINT MADE IN THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE - I REPEAT, PLEASE READ THEM THOROUGHLY BEFORE COMMENTING, USING A DICTIONARY FOR THE HARD WORDS. On that subject, "loser" is spelled with one "O" - I should know. Hey, at least I'll cop to it - and use my real name in the bargain.

I for one am going to stay away from the internet for at least a week.

Oh, and the "space-ship as Freudian symbol of the male sex" thing is what is commonly referred to as a joke.

Willie Zaza

FAHQ

Thursday, December 25, 2003 7:41 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Kobayashi:
[
Quote:
2. The Serenity looked like a diseased set of male genitals - at least in Flesh Gordon, the 70's comic soft-core version of the 30's Flash Gordonserial, they made the rocketship/phallus connection openly.

I guess that means that most of the federation ships in Star Trek look like female reproductive anatomy (Ovaries, falopian (sp?) tubes and uterus. Damn- I am so tired from pigging out last night I actually thought of that one! What a stretch!

SHOOT ME NOW!

What really cracks me up is that the mindless prick actually implies that the Belch and Fart channel has quality programming.

"My days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle."

PBGAINES

Thursday, December 25, 2003 10:42 PM

This is a nice little discussion you guys are propogating here, but I'd like to admonish y'all for sounding so contemptuous of people who forget things. I read "The Killer Angels" from cover to cover in 2 sittings while doing research for my multimedia project, and I nonetheless misnamed it in my final presentation (in spite of the fact that I based many of my arguments on the book). We forgetful geniuses struggle to keep organized/filed so that we don't forget things, but memory is too often an implied sibling of knowledge.

BTA,

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