Why Not Magistrate Higgins?

POSTED BY: Jongsstraw
UPDATED: Wednesday, December 15, 2010 23:54
VIEWED: 9270
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BYTEMITE

Tuesday, December 22, 2009 7:26 PM

Sorry, part of that post was directed at Mike.

Quote:
All her guys seem flawed in some way. Atherton Wing is a murderer of sorts, and also a possessive psychopath. In the Pilot, the kid from Persephone with the Sgt. Pepper uniform was a smart-ass dandy who insulted her on his way out. The best "client" we saw was the Minister gal in War Stories. I think partying with the Higgmeister would be a fun diversion for her.

So there's really not an inkling of judgment involved here on your part about Inara's profession, her clients, and/or her taste? Other people seem to have interpreted you this way, myself included.

To answer your question, Magistrate Higgins acts like an ass when he introduces her to Fess. His proposition was probably plenty colourful as well (since it says in show that he asked on behalf of his son), so she'd have gotten a good idea about his character from there. I think Inara likes her clients to be respectful. Higgins is not.

BYTEMITE

Tuesday, December 22, 2009 7:37 PM

Quote:
While some good can come out of anything,
I feel the sex-trade de-values human relationships by a vast majority.

What relationship is Inara devaluing? She's single, she's not cheating on anyone, being Buddhist she's going to try to make sure none of her clients are cheating on anyone either, since not having illicit relationships is one of the central tenets. Though that councilwoman slipped through, she was married, but in the script it's pretty clear Inara didn't know that and was upset.

I don't think we can compare the quality of her client relationships to her non-client relationships.

There are plenty of things that cheapen human relationships. Dishonesty, gold-digging, drunken marriages... What makes it okay versus not okay is if someone gets hurt. Mal apparently likes her, maybe even loves her, but his hurt isn't over her profession (he even defends it occasionally), his hurt is that she doesn't seem to want to be with him. And that's her choice. Same with Atherton and anyone else who made her an offer to stay with them and she turned them down. She's allowed to have her reasons and to keep her work life and private life separate.

JONGSSTRAW

Tuesday, December 22, 2009 7:38 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:

Quote:
All her guys seem flawed in some way. Atherton Wing is a murderer of sorts, and also a possessive psychopath. In the Pilot, the kid from Persephone with the Sgt. Pepper uniform was a smart-ass dandy who insulted her on his way out. The best "client" we saw was the Minister gal in War Stories. I think partying with the Higgmeister would be a fun diversion for her.

So there's really not an inkling of judgment involved here on your part about Inara's profession, her clients, and/or her taste? Other people seem to have interpreted you this way, myself included.

Oh perhaps an inkling or two, based on the glimpses we have on the subject during the series, but no judgements on Inara's profession.

BYTEMITE

Tuesday, December 22, 2009 7:43 PM

Yeah, I thought I smelled a little something like that.

I'm just saying, it's not fair to hold her clients against her (I add: mental image EWW) anymore than it is to hold the clients of a prison psychologist against them. It's her job. She thinks she's helping people. Sometimes they turn out to be piss-poor examples of humanity. Joss seems to think that piss-poor examples of humanity tend to be Alliance, who also tend to be rich, though I guess scummy backwater planet bigwigs are given the same brush. Maybe he just doesn't like jerks who use their economic and political clout to abuse people.

EDIT: I want to make it clear here, I'm not offended by anyone. I've heard a number of these arguments before, (generally from guys, though a few girls seem to also feel the same way about this), and some of the arguments even have merit. In general, and also in THIS world, prostitution is SO not a good thing, and I'll even agree that there's some serious problems the profession poses even without pimps such as jealousy and self-esteem issues. But I think as depicted that Inara is not guilty of anything. And, since I like discussing ethics, and I like discussing Inara, I am a clam in mud.

TWO

Tuesday, December 22, 2009 7:58 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by pennausamike:
No matter how much you shine it up, no matter how rich the trappings or how cloaked in ritual, the Companion system is still at its core one step removed from a blow-job for a twenty in an alley. Reducing sex to a business transaction is only glamorous in fiction.

I agree that the difference between a $20 whore and the highest priced Call-girl is too subtle and nuanced to explain why Inara is angry at Mal for calling her a whore. There must be some very obvious difference between a Companion and an upper-class Call-girl/Courtesan. Differences that are so blatant that even Mal should know them. Does your mother suddenly become a whore if she takes money from your father? That kind of obviousness. Everybody in the 'Verse but ignoramuses knows that difference so it never got directly explained on Firefly. Now I've got to invent a difference between Call-girl and Companion.

It's difficult to imagine Companions being highly respected by clients if Companions are paid like bartenders, per drink, even if pouring Chivas Regal aged 25 years. What if Companions are not paid per client or sex act? If they are not paid at all by clients? I like the idea of them being on salary. That would explain why Inara could take a sabbatical from serving clients and move into the position of high school teacher in the movie. She does what she wants, serves where she wants, and there is no sacrifice in pay or prestige within the Guild.

Maybe Companions are Communists with every Companion getting the same salary? The Companions Guild could break down comparisons to being an ordinary Capitalist service industry by paying all Companions the same. That would get rid of the nasty backstabbing of competitive prostitution. There's no CEO Companion being paid 500 times more than the average Companion.

If I really wanted to be imaginative, I could assume that Companionship dates back to the trip from Earth. All the strange customs about money and Companionship started on that trip. I'm certain a starship must be a closed economy where everybody lives in poverty like they have a life sentence in an inescapable prison. I can't see how money would work on a starship. If Companionship originated on starships, what are you going to buy with money? A Rolls-Royce? A vacation in Hawaii? A penthouse apartment? I don't think so. Easy to imagine that there was nearly nothing to buy on the trip out from Earth.

I even like the idea that the total yearly fees paid directly to the Guild by clients aren't sufficient to run all the operations of the Guild of Companions. Maybe the Companions have an endowment like a University or charity hospital, where the endowment pays many of the costs for running private, yet free, high schools. I'd love to see the Companion sponsored athletics, you know, girls fastpitch softball teams.

The Joss Whedon script for "Serenity", where Wash lives, is
Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/two

PLATONIST

Tuesday, December 22, 2009 8:12 PM

I think you're suggestion that Inara "party" with M. Higgins for a diversion is ludicrous. And she says as much to his son. He’s crass, brazen and grotesque.

He doesn't respect her profession or HER. He thinks she's a whore, unlike Mal, who thinks what she does, is whoring. She has to constantly defend her profession from those that don’t get the difference. She views sex as an element of the spiritual arts, like a communion. It has nothing to do with getting drunk, partying, and getting laid, like at a Frat party or a brothel.
And, I agree with B… M.Higgins and Inara are like eww…brain bleach time.

TWO

Tuesday, December 22, 2009 9:31 PM

If Companionship is motivated by money for sex, there is no good reason for Inara to turn down Magistrate Higgins. It would be a business like urology -- money is money no matter who's paying. But if Inara's profession is not about money, but about (choose one or more, per your values) friendship, love, female orgasms, kindness, mental-health-services, adventure, then the Magistrate is out of luck with Inara. The Magistrate will need to hire somebody else for his genitourinary health checkup.

The Joss Whedon script for "Serenity", where Wash lives, is
Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/two

BYTEMITE

Tuesday, December 22, 2009 9:39 PM

True, courtesan is maybe not the best description of her profession, though it was the closest I could come up to that seems consistent with how companions seem to almost be treated like royalty, and undoubtedly contract with them (since the Alliance seems to have absorbed the British idea of Lords, like in Shindig on Persephone, and a figurehead King, mentioned in the pilot).

Therapist is probably the best, closest approximation we have to the function of the service she gives to clients. But with benefits.

PENNAUSAMIKE

Wednesday, December 23, 2009 1:02 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by two:
If Companionship is motivated by money for sex, there is no good reason for Inara to turn down Magistrate Higgins. SNIP

Sure there is, the "eww" factor.
But still, if the paycheck doesn't come, neither does Inara.
Seriously, I do what I do for a living in part because I like it.
But if the company told me they were no longer paying,
I wouldn't be working here.

Companions surround themselves with beauty and ritual and think of their profession as helping people.
But real life has not borne out that conclusion regarding the sex-trade,
and Joss definitely constructed his future world with the idea that the nature of humanity hasn't changed.

I'm not "arguing" with anyone over this.
A discussion of the complexity of human emotions and their intertwining with the sex act is too complex for my limited typing skills.

But I stand by my assertion that despite the trappings, the Companion system is a flawed way to "minister" to people.
It does, however, provide a fascinating backdrop to explore political and personal entanglements in the fictional 'verse.
If I were running the Firefly production, I would want to explore the Companion system's place in the Alliance and the 'verse further.

Mike

PLATONIST

Wednesday, December 23, 2009 1:28 AM

Well, I doubt we would have ever seen Inara take any pro bono work because she needs the money to support herself;) Nor should she, its hard work to get yourself mentally prepared to be intimate with someone you just met over the cortex, especially with tea as your beverage.

Companioning as presented is all about perceptions; Inara believes it to be moral, giving, and righteous, most others, including Mal, not so much. Because no matter what rituals, training, or fee you charge, many people, because it includes sex for money, will view it as whoring.

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