Firefly Feminist Debate

POSTED BY: Arcadia
UPDATED: Thursday, June 19, 2008 03:30
VIEWED: 8444
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ALLIETHORN7

Friday, June 6, 2008 1:14 AM

Sad, sad... I remember commenting on the bullshit of the article not two months back... meh.
Some folks need to learn that not everything requires a crusade.

-Danny

Sweet berries ready for two
Ghosts are no different than you
Ghosts are now waiting for you
Are you dreaming

Dreaming the night
Dreaming all right

Do we, do we know
When we fly
When we, when we go
Do we die?

The Band of the week is... System of a Down

Gott weiß ich will kein Engel sein.
http://www.myspace.com/otherrandomdude

NBZ

Friday, June 6, 2008 1:17 AM

You lot may also enjoy that authors new blog at wordpress. Specifically the posts on OMR:

http://allecto.wordpress.com/2008/04/06/a-rapists-view-of-the-world-ou
r-mrs-reynolds-part-one/

http://allecto.wordpress.com/2008/05/02/a-wife-beaters-view-of-the-wor
ld-our-mrs-reynolds-part-two/

She. Does. Not. Get. It.

Some of it is funny. As an aside - is it all serious, or just very dark/dry humour? how can you not laugh at

Quote:
A bit later Mal talks about how he likes to wear dresses with Inara. “Like woman,
I am a mystery,” he says of his enjoyment of wearing dresses. Sorry, Joss, score zero for that one. Women aren’t a mystery, WE ARE FULLY CONSCIOUS HUMAN BEINGS. And Mal is a wanker and wankers aren’t a bit mysterious. At least they aren’t to me. Maybe wankers are mysterious to unicorns. Who knows. I think I’m starting to hate unicorns.

Go on. Tell me noone found that funny.

@Phyrelight: what he answers is why he does. Not why he "has to". In short, he doesn't have to. No one has to.

(I will also go against the grain as my opinion is that he is less empowering them, more fetishising them.)

You have to also take his answer for River Tam in the BDM with a grain of salt - he is defending his work. (I would also suggest River is NOT an empowered character. Not at all. Zoe may be the most empowered followed by the others. River would come a distant last.)

TRAVELER

Friday, June 6, 2008 2:17 AM

Give on to those who rant brainlessly their brainless rant.

She is free to stomp all over Joss and then says she is going to control the responses she gets. In other words only positive responses will be considered.

As I have learned here about Trolls, don't feed them. Let them die a lonely death. Or in this case with their own kind. She does seem to attract flies.

http://www.imdb.com/mymovies/list?l=28764731
Traveler

PHYRELIGHT

Friday, June 6, 2008 2:18 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by nbz:
You lot may also enjoy that authors new blog at wordpress. Specifically the posts on OMR:

http://allecto.wordpress.com/2008/04/06/a-rapists-view-of-the-world-ou
r-mrs-reynolds-part-one/

http://allecto.wordpress.com/2008/05/02/a-wife-beaters-view-of-the-wor
ld-our-mrs-reynolds-part-two/

She. Does. Not. Get. It.

Some of it is funny. As an aside - is it all serious, or just very dark/dry humour? how can you not laugh at

Quote:
A bit later Mal talks about how he likes to wear dresses with Inara. “Like woman,
I am a mystery,” he says of his enjoyment of wearing dresses. Sorry, Joss, score zero for that one. Women aren’t a mystery, WE ARE FULLY CONSCIOUS HUMAN BEINGS. And Mal is a wanker and wankers aren’t a bit mysterious. At least they aren’t to me. Maybe wankers are mysterious to unicorns. Who knows. I think I’m starting to hate unicorns.

Go on. Tell me noone found that funny.

@Phyrelight: what he answers is why he does. Not why he "has to". In short, he doesn't have to. No one has to.

(I will also go against the grain as my opinion is that he is less empowering them, more fetishising them.)

You have to also take his answer for River Tam in the BDM with a grain of salt - he is defending his work. (I would also suggest River is NOT an empowered character. Not at all. Zoe may be the most empowered followed by the others. River would come a distant last.)

If you really study what drives an individual in life, you'll learn that sometimes there is no difference in "doing" and "have to do". For example, no one has to fall in love, but people do it anyways. For Joss, he doesn't have to write empowered women, but he still does it and he'll continue to do it. Imho, that shouldn't change because it is part of his collective style and his style sets him apart from all the other writers out there.

All of his characters--male and female--all have their strengths and weaknesses, thus making them all believable as human. Not all of them are whole individually. Not all of the women he writes are the strongest and the fastest, and not all of them are “fetishized”. But, when they are together in their "families", they complement each other and get through whatever trial lays before them. Like River, for example, mentally she's not all there, but her abilities leads Mal to regain the belief that no government can make people “better”, only the individual person can do that for him- or herself. And, he wouldn’t be able to do a fraction of his jobs without the entirety of the crew.

And I know this kind of sounds like a dumb question, but can you give me your definition of how Joss is fetishing women? Sure, Zoe is one of the deadliest of the crew, but Mal, Jayne, and River are just as deadly or dealier in their own ways. However, she’s not all battle and blood. She also enjoys being pampered like so many other women with things like warm baths and slinky dresses, she dearly loved Wash, had a very normal marriage, and wanted to have children with him.

As for reading the feminist blog on OMR, I’m not going to bother. I think it would be a waste of my time and energy. As the saying goes, never argue with an idiot (or zealot). They drag you down to their level and beat you with experience. Besides, I’m sure the article’s author never took it to mind that Mal’s first instinct once he learned that he was married was not to take Saffron off to his bunk. As a matter of fact, Mal turned her away again and again because he thought that trading off a woman as a sort of payment was wrong. And yes, he did eventually fall for her wiles, but like I said before he’s human, and I know few men who would have an easy time turning down a naked woman who uses that kind of verbal, sexual imagery (that is not in the Bible, btw).

Darksiders can keep their cookies. We have better writers.

Grrr. Argghh.

Patiently waiting to see Cap'n Ti

MAL4PREZ

Friday, June 6, 2008 2:19 AM

OK. Does anyone else get the feeling that this idiot is some disgruntled anti-feminist posing as a feminist just to make feminists look insane? Cause this person's posts are without a doubt

INSANE!!!!

-----------------------------------------------
hmm-burble-blah, blah-blah-blah, take a left

JEWELSTAITEFAN

Friday, June 6, 2008 4:52 AM

This has already been covered. However, with recent posts bantying about the 'misogynist' label, it is appropriate to come up again here. Some here have not learned to not cry wolf so their knee-jerk over-reaction to claim anything they don't understand as misogynist renders their comments mute.

SHINYGOODGUY

Friday, June 6, 2008 7:58 AM

Firefly may have some flaws, but misogynistic?

I read the essay and found that the author saw a great many things that, quite frankly, wasn't there. Much of her argument was selective in nature and taken way out of context.

I also read your response and found it to be quite informative, in other words, I learned something. The show is indeed meant for thinking adults who value a good story and character development. She obviously did not "get" the show.

Thanks for posting this it was enlightening.

Shiny! Let's be bad guys!

DIGIFICWRITER

Tuesday, June 10, 2008 3:27 PM

I think the essayist is criticizing the wrong show. If she's going to get pissy about the way Joss treats some of his female characters, she should really be going after BtVS and ANGEL (although they're still inherently feministic and empowering of women overall in their outlook, message, and portrayal of female characters).

Check out the continuing adventures of the Big Damn Heroes of Joss Whedon's Firefly in [url= http://www.stillflying.net]Virtual Firefly: Here's How It Might Have Been[/url]

WYTCHCROFT

Tuesday, June 17, 2008 9:30 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by nbz:

You have to also take his answer for River Tam in the BDM with a grain of salt - he is defending his work. (I would also suggest River is NOT an empowered character. Not at all. Zoe may be the most empowered followed by the others. River would come a distant last.)

these are interesting points - and few posts or fics - or rants (ha ha) have addressed them.

BIGGESTDAMNHERO

Tuesday, June 17, 2008 9:37 PM

My main gripe is that the men in FF/S are at times portrayed as Neanderthals and the women as bad asses. The first maybe, the second not based in reality. Unless your a former east German "Female" athlete.

"And I'm thinking you weren't
burdened with an overabundance of
schooling"

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