Confession from an old FF fan (reasonably old, at any rate)...
POSTED BY: chrisisall
UPDATED: Sunday, December 25, 2011 16:29
VIEWED: 4831
PAGE 2 of 3
Quote:
Originally posted by FloralBunny:
testing - - ate my post - -
crap. carefully thought out and just gone.
I sympathize, daily.
I've gotten pretty good at the two line rephrase.
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You think those barmaids in the Longbranch Saloon run by Kitty were innocent? Marshal Dillon, unlike Nathan, had no problem with it. I got the impression they decorated Inara's shuttle to match Kitty's bedroom.
http://www.imdb.com/mymovies/list?l=28764731
Traveler
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Nobody remembers Gunsmoke, Traveler.
Oh, when Martial Dillon got that bullet near his heart I was mortified!
The laughing Chrisisall
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Quote:
No, she weren't. I just watched it again (3 times) to make sure. Her voice was soft and low and earnest, if she were sarcastic she most likely would have pursed her lips first, or given him the evil eye. There was no sign of that. She did make a sarcastic remark right after that, and you might be confusing them.
Inara wasn't just a prostitute, she had education and training in many things and in the training aspect more functionally Geisha-like. There are a great many fetishes and I'm sure she was brought up to speed on all of them, and sincerely had specialties in things like washing feet.
Script says she was sarcastic.
From the Visual Companion:
Quote:
MAL: Do you ever, um, wash your client's feet?
INARA: (no) It's my specialty.
I think you misread her. I saw disgust in her reaction, fluttering her eyelashes and her voice low, mocking seduction to put Mal ill at ease. She finds it demeaning and the fact that Mal is asking her, with her not knowing why, it reflects poorly on Mal and feeds into her whole opinion about his marriage with Saffron being unequal and exploitative.
It's the context of the situation and where the conversation is going. She has no reason to be earnest with Mal because she thinks he's a total jerk at that time.
She is a companion. It's not supposed to be a degrading profession, though I'll admit that what Inara wants it to be and what it is aren't always the same.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Wishimay:Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:
She was being sarcastic.
No, she weren't.
Actually, it's in the script. (and I do quote)
Mal: Do you ever, um, wash your client's feet?
Inara: (no) It's my specialty.
That's what Joss intended her answer to mean; however, Morena's delivery may have convinced you otherwise, and the fact that Joss chose that particular take may also have significance.
Joss is good at taking cliches and turning them on their ear. So of course there's a preacher and a whore in his space western, but the characters have twists to them and quite a lot of depth. I wasn't sure how much I *liked* Inara's being a Companion when I first watched the show, but as a writer of fanfic, the fact that she is one is an incredibly rich vein to mine. That she hides her true self behind layers of masks, and that she has a fundamental conflict with Mal--wouldn't want to give up these rich (and useful) sources of conflict and story development.
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Matt was shoot so many times in the shoulders and the arms they would have been ground beef.
I only saw Kitty kiss Matt once on the cheek. Quit a change from the sex scenes they show today.
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I always perceived Inara's answer to the question of whether she washes feet to be sarcasm, but that didn't mean that she hasn't washed feet before. If a client wants it then I don't see why she wouldn't give it a go.
"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya
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Quote:
Originally posted by ebfiddler:
... and the fact that Joss chose that particular take may also have significance.
That's what I'm going with. I think at the last second he thought there are people even today who fill those kinds of specialties. Cutting that service aspect off would basically make her a sex-bot. I see her more as a sexual therapist.
I'm sure people either see her as one or the other...
Damn Fox...
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I believe Inara when she says Companioning is not just about sex. (Although I agree that she insists upon this point a little too strenuously. Particularly when Mal is around.) What she offers is companionship (in the lower-case sense of the word), caring, and human comfort. We know from Nandi's talk in HoG that Companions are trained in music, and that they are skilled at reading people and social situations. It's also implied that the Companion Guild has some political power that's independent of both local governments and the Alliance central government. I can imagine Inara being hired by a client to facilitate social/business interactions. (In one of my fanfics, a client hires Inara to "work the room" for him at a business social gathering.) I can also imagine that Companions (or perhaps retired Companions) might run political salons, where they act as political hostesses or hosts (I do think there are male Companions as well) and help broker deals. I imagine that the sex fantasy that they are able to provide is just one of their tools.
And getting back to an earlier question in this thread--what I found more uncomfortable than Companions and their trade, was Reavers. (This is personal discomfort--I'm not a big fan of horror--but I don't argue with having Reavers or something like them, as a means of propelling the story. Having something scary lurking in the darkness is another incredibly useful device.)
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Man, Chris,
The way you can revere that dang dumbed-down, buffy-fied, paint-by-numbers version of Firefly continues to astound. Are you being prudish? Are you upset that prostitution continues to exist after the Earth is destroyed? Or that in Joss's future, sex work is so respected? How is telling the story of a companion "misogynist?" Are you saying you don't buy that Inara was an empowered person? Sex work is a reality of human civilization. I think I gotta side with Inara on this one. Deal with it, Mal.
HKCavalier
Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.
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