Did the 'Companion' thing ever bug you in Firefly?

POSTED BY: chrisisall
UPDATED: Saturday, February 7, 2026 14:42
VIEWED: 45553
PAGE 4 of 21

PREV PAGE 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 NEXT PAGE

PIRATENEWS

Tuesday, February 16, 2010 2:56 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Haken:

Yeah, same here. My wife and I were just talking about it earlier this evening how we were both fortunate and avoided the whole adult dating circuit.

Speed-dating, dating-in-the-dark, and all the other newfangled ways that people are using to try and find their true love just makes us feel tired and probably not survive the ordeal.

My 20-something business associate did not survive the dating game with strippers and hookers. Or at least parts of him did not...

It was after midnight as he left the strip club enroute to booty call with his favorite paid companion... The country road was dark and snowy, as his pickup truck hit black ice... Dang that invisible dip in the road! What the hell is that guardrail doing there? WTF???!!! BAMM!!! BAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAM... ARRRRRRRGGGGGGG!!!!!!!

His pickup speared the defective guardrail head-on... The metal posts were illegally installed 2 feet deep in the soft dirt, making sounds like an assault rifle on full-auto... Dang those Mafia contractors to Hell!!! The sharp end of the "guardrail" speared the truck's grill, missed the engine block, entering the passenger compartment...

The frozen 12-inch-wide rusty steel blade first sliced his testicle from his body... then eviscerated his intestines... then amputated his leg... then separated his pelvis from his body... as another 70-feet of "guardrail" continued to pass through his guts and out the tailgate... as he and his truck and the entire bloody "guardrail" went off the cliff and into the icy creek...

They say it's the sudden stop that kills ya... Dead silence in pitch black in the boonies... Massive hemmoraging as he bled out... Shock setting in as blood pressure drops...

A neighbor wakes up from his slumber watching TV: "What the Hell was THAT?! He calls 9/11 and report gunshots... which made the deputy sheriffs too scared to show up...

The neighbor and his dad grab their flashlights (and guns) and go looking for trouble... After 10 minutes, they find it in a icy creek... They cover the bloody body with a blanket and call 9/11 again to report a crash...

Ambulance shows up 30 minutes after impact... still no cops... Helicopter flies the lifeless corpse to the local "teaching hospital"... The family is called with the news... Doctors tell them, "You better go ahead and make your funeral arrangements..."

Select to view spoiler:

Long story short: $500,000 in med bills, which his parents paid by selling their house to keep doctors from killing him and stealing his organs. He was the only hemipelvectomy to survive in the history of UT hospital. Within 6 months his was bangin his hooker in the hospital. Within 1 year he was water skiing, snow skiing, and driving his modified racecar at Road Atlanta. Went to college and got an engineering degree, which he used to get into the cartheft business with the international mafia and the local sheriff.
piratenews.org/SMRKnoxvilleGroup10RacingIndycars.htm

So watch out for them hookers, or your pecker might get chopped off. BOO!

And if you think companions are dangerous, try texting while driving to booty call.

"I find your argument both disturbing and intriguing."
-Castle

JONGSSTRAW

Tuesday, February 16, 2010 1:19 PM

The Companion element was a great concept that allowed Morena a chance to display her grace, beauty, and charm. She was a strong character, and much of that strength came from her profession. It would not have been as great a series without her presence on Serenity.

GEEZER

Tuesday, February 16, 2010 1:43 PM

Also remember that there were class distinctions among prostitutes in the Firefly 'verse.

In "Heart of Gold", Mal (I think) said something about "...a whole house full of Companions" and Inara replied "No. They're whores."

BTW, A while ago I wrote a fan-fic about Mal's problem with Inara's profession.

http://www.fireflyfans.net/sunroomitem.asp?i=1242

"Keep the Shiny side up"

DMI

Tuesday, February 16, 2010 2:57 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by pizmobeach:
I liked how even after Mal gave Inara so much flack she came in to save him in The Train Job. Makes me wonder who is against legalizing prostitution, men or women? Too much power for women? And if it was legal and women ran it would it be more like in the show?

With the notable counter argument that male prostitution isn't legal either (anyone here watching "Hung"?), I've got to agree with you that prostitution being illegal has been a form of sexism designed to keep woman who use their bodies to their economic empowerment down in the lowest class of citizens called criminals, riddled with disease, drug use and forced to rely on male pimps for protection.

The question isn't whether or not you would want your wife or daughter to do it, the question is, objectively, do the women who engage in this profession have the right to use their bodies as they please and be protected by the law? If you were going to use a prostitute and you had the choice between the hooker on the street corner and a licensed professional that you know has been tested for STDs, wouldn't you use the professional? Taking prostitutes off the streets protects them and the people that use them and would cut down on drug use and trafficking as well as provides another avenue of government taxation to fund schools and police, etc.

So, yea, I think that would be more like it is in the show. And of course there would be a spiritual element to it. It'd be like going to a massage parlor where they have all the eastern music playing and candles lit. I always felt like Inara's shuttle reminded me of a spa.

Quote:
Originally posted by ncbrowncoat:

What can I say. I'm from a small town in the South and the liberal university town of Chapel Hill, NC corrupted me.

Hey, fellow ACCer, my seminoles are playing you guys in a week!

I pray for one last landing,
on the globe that gave me birth.
Let me rest my eyes on the fleecy skies
and the cool, green hills of Earth.

PIRATENEWS

Tuesday, February 16, 2010 4:28 PM

Miss Kitty was a prostitute/madam on TV in Gunsmoke. In real life she smoked like a chimney and died of HIV AIDS.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amanda_Blake
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunsmoke

So Inara's character is nothing new on TV, and FF was a space western. Gotta have a space hooker in the Wild Wild Verse. It's mandatory.

What's new is a hooker is allowed to fall in love (or love/hate). Tho happy hooker Julia Roberts did that in Pretty Woman.

TWO

Tuesday, February 16, 2010 5:26 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by piratenews:
Miss Kitty was a prostitute/madam on TV in Gunsmoke. In real life she smoked like a chimney and died of HIV AIDS. So Inara's character is nothing new on TV, and FF was a space western. Gotta have a space hooker in the Wild Wild Verse. It's mandatory.

What's new is a hooker is allowed to fall in love (or love/hate). Tho happy hooker Julia Roberts did that in Pretty Woman.

In “Pretty Woman” Julia Roberts wanted out of prostitution; Inara wants a long career. Maybe Pretty Woman style prostitution is only superficially similar to Companionship.

In Nevada, prostitution is legal and yet prostitutes want out, same as workers at fast food restaurants want a short career in hamburgers. And prostitutes in Nevada are not respected by clients, like us retired Burger King food-handlers didn't get respect when we were working, either. And I deserved respect because a Whopper-maker can kill faster with E. Coli than a prostitute can kill with AIDS.

Being a legalized profession does not explain the high respect and status of Companionship. There has got to be some deeper explanation that Firefly never told us about. The religious angle (Companions are high priestesses of loving compassion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacred_prostitution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_magic ) doesn't seem to me to be the origin of Inara's status. Anybody got some wildly creative explanation??? Earth bound law and history doesn't go far enough to explain Inara and Companionship. Legalized whoring gets little respect in the 'Verse and Companionship gets lots of respect. Why is that?

The Hetaera of Greece does NOT work for me. (See ecgordon http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.asp?b=2&t=41888#759124 ) That was thousands of years ago. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neaira_%28hetaera%29

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

PLATONIST

Tuesday, February 16, 2010 6:03 PM

I like the idea of the Companion’s Guild. If you’re going to legalize and regulate prostitution you may as well leave it in the hands of those that do the actual servicing.

Like Two says, though, I was never able to buy into Inara’s high standing either as a Guild member or a sacred whore. It doesn’t make sense that whores, trained and certified in the future would suddenly have social status and credibility, notoriety, like celebrities of today, yes, but not power brokers of tomorrow. Legal doesn’t equal empowerment, money does, and maybe the Guild has a lot of money, like the Church at one time. But the Church was in the business of selling tickets for soul redemption, where the Guild’s services are more of a luxury for the rich, a luxury you can live without, especially if you lose your money, so even that comparison doesn’t hold up.

And, where prostitution is legal already this hasn’t happened, like Nevada. And the prostitutes working there want to leave and go into porn where the real money is.

HoG; the only redeeming thing about HoG, is that it gave us good examples of what happens to whores who don’t have the protection of the Guild and it’s no wonder why Inara kept defending its trained Companions as not being whores. She clearly sees a clear distinction between the two, even when Mal doesn’t, but maybe that’s what Mal learned from what happened at the HoG because he couldn’t protect Nandi, an independent whore.

And, just because we see Inara defending her chosen profession doesn’t mean she wants to do it forever, otherwise if she did, she wouldn’t have left the house to fly on Serenity and end up on backwater moons NOT having any clients to service. And, both Nandi and Saffron ran from the Guild, so something is askew there, too restrictive, probably.

MINCINGBEAST

Tuesday, February 16, 2010 6:47 PM

Yes, absolutely. The companion thing made me keenly aware of my puritanical inhibitions, which I celebrate.

Its not the humping for money part that bugs me, but rather the insistence that humping for money can be an enobling, empowering and spiritually rewarding act. But I'm not really comfortable with the alternative--suggesting that humping for money is fine and dandy so long as it is a degrading and miserable thing.

So, reverence for companions bugs me, and my reaction to companions bugs me, too.

TWO

Tuesday, February 16, 2010 7:00 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Platonist:
Like Two says, though, I was never able to buy into Inara’s high standing either as a Guild member or a sacred whore. It doesn’t make sense that whores, trained and certified in the future would suddenly have social status and credibility, notoriety, like celebrities of today, yes, but not power brokers of tomorrow. Legal doesn’t equal empowerment, money does, and maybe the Guild has a lot of money, like the Church at one time. But the Church was in the business of selling tickets for soul redemption, where the Guild’s services are more of a luxury for the rich, a luxury you can live without, especially if you lose your money, so even that comparison doesn’t hold up...

And, just because we see Inara defending her chosen profession doesn’t mean she wants to do it forever, otherwise if she did, she wouldn’t have left the house to fly on Serenity and end up on backwater moons NOT having any clients to service...

I have a solution to the mystery of Inara's superior status, but I'm forced to imagine a history for Companionship. Inara on Serenity is like a professor on a sabbatical. Leaving Serenity, her next role was as an actual teacher back at a Companion operated school.

Imagine the Companion Guild as a rich and self-governed University (think Harvard) with a large endowment. I'll imagine that the Guild was formed on board the ships from Earth. The Guild has a special low tax status in the first constitution written after arriving in the 'Verse. The Guild has been wisely investing its endowment for centuries.

All this imaginary history would give Inara the high status of a Harvard full professor. She wouldn't be paid by the hour -- she's on salary. There's no pressure for her to teach more and more “students” (service more clients). Whatever fees the clients pay are "tuition" going directly to the “University” (the Guild.) By separating sex from money, I think this is a workable way to strongly differentiate Companionship from prostitution. This gives Inara status that high priced call girl could never attain.

And it fits with the science fiction genre: people haven't changed but society has been rearranged into a new order. Companions are on high, prostitutes are low, tenured professors are high, kindergarten teachers are low.

Sorry about that low status, kindergarten teachers, but working with noisy, snot-nosed kids is not as refined as working with 22-year-old graduate students writing dissertations, although there are similarities.

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

IMNOTHERE

Tuesday, February 16, 2010 8:12 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Platonist:
It doesn’t make sense that whores, trained and certified in the future would suddenly have social status and credibility, notoriety, like celebrities of today, yes, but not power brokers of tomorrow.

Well, the concept is hardly new:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Courtesan - note that someone has already added a link to Inara
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacred_prostitution
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geisha (Although I believe the authentic Geisha service stops at a sexy dance and a nice hot cup of tea).

Quote:

And, just because we see Inara defending her chosen profession doesn’t mean she wants to do it forever, otherwise if she did, she wouldn’t have left the house to fly on Serenity and end up on backwater moons NOT having any clients to service.

Well, Inara's reasons for doing that have been discussed at length, elsewhere, and were clearly going to be an important element of the plot arc had the show continued.

Quote:

And, both Nandi and Saffron ran from the Guild, so something is askew there, too restrictive, probably.

Well, Nandi's problem with the guild was well described in the show - she had no problem with the sex for money thing, but was driven batty by poetry and dulcimer lessons. Saffron was just plain psycho. Well... really, really hot psycho, actually - we never got the full story, she may have been thrown out of the guild with extreme prejudice (probably after having stolen anything not screwed down).

PREV PAGE 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 NEXT PAGE