June 3, 2025 • 54 mins
May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one.
When Tracie first encountered the fan-favorite Western-in-space television show Firefly 20 years ago, she was delighted by Joss Whedon's subversion of tropes, his mastery of the written word, and his commitment to excellent storytelling. At the time, Whedon was heralded as a modern feminist and Firefly (and its follow up film Serenity) were presented as proof of his feminism bona fides. This franchise gave us kick-ass women like Zoe, Inara, Kaylee, and River and a future society where sex work is revered.
But in hindsight, Whedon's storytelling shows a few cracks--from the weird absence of any Asian characters (despite everyone speaking Mandarin) to the sometimes toxic romance tropes. There are still plenty of delights in store for the modern viewer, including cultural commentary on how humans will continue to be awful to each other in space, as well as the beloved crew of misfits and outlaws who navigate the horrors with aplomb and cunning hats.
Everything's shiny, Captain! Just throw on those headphones and take a listen.
CW: Mentions of sexual violence
This episode was edited by Resonate Recordings.
Our theme music is "Professor Umlaut" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Learn more about Tracie and Emily (including our other projects), join the Guy Girls' family, secure exclusive access to bonus episodes, video versions, and early access to Deep Thoughts by visiting us on Patreon or find us on ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/guygirls
We are Tracie Guy-Decker and Emily Guy Birken, known to our family as the Guy Girls.
We have super-serious day jobs. For the bona fides, visit our individual websites: tracieguydecker.com and emilyguybirken.com
We're hella smart and completely unashamed of our overthinking prowess. We love movies and tv, science fiction, comedy, and murder mysteries, good storytelling with lots of dramatic irony, and analyzing pop culture for gender dynamics, psychology, sociology, and whatever else we find.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Whedon, I think, was a writer at heart.
I've read a little bit whereother directors might allow
their actors to kind of feelinto the character and ad-lib a
bit.
Whedon wanted the dialoguedelivered precisely as he wrote
it, because he was a writer atheart, and that leads to some
(00:20):
interesting things, I think, inthe way that it maps out in this
show.
Have you ever had something youlove dismissed because it's
just pop culture, what othersmight deem stupid shit?
You know matters, you know it'sworth talking and thinking
about, and so do we.
So come overthink with us as wedelve into our deep thoughts
(00:44):
about stupid shit.
I'm Tracy Guy-Decker and you'relistening to Deep Thoughts
About Stupid Shit, because popculture is still culture, and
shouldn't you know what's inyour head?
On today's episode, I'll besharing my deep thoughts about
the Joss Whedon property,Firefly and Serenity with my
(01:09):
sister, Emily Guy-Burken, andwith you.
Let's dive in.
Okay, Em, I know you've seenthese because we've talked about
it, but tell me what is in yourhead about Firefly and Serenity
.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
So I know that this is one of those shows that was
like the victim of corporatemeddling.
So I know that I think it wasairing on Fox and they decided
that it was confusing and sothey aired it out of order, like
the second episode first andthen the first episode, and so
it did not get traction, exceptamong a very vocal fan base who
(01:41):
loved it because it's very, verywell done.
Vocal fan base who loved itbecause it's very, very well
done.
And so I know Joss Whedon madeSerenity to like finish the
story so that his fans couldhave like closure, the things
that I remember.
There's a cunning hat, the kindof tough guy he has, a hat that
someone knits for him.
That's cunning, oh, oh okayyeah, janeane's hat, jane,
(02:08):
jane's hat.
I remember inara and the kind oflike will they, won't they with
um nathan fillion's character,who's malcolm?
Yeah, mal mal and there's.
there's a point where everyone'swatching them with popcorn.
I guess they're meeting for thefirst time in a while and Inara
was a companion.
Companions were considered likelegitimate business people and
(02:33):
yet there was still some bakedin like ickiness about sex work.
So like it was like yes but no.
And oh, shepard Book.
I remember Shepard Book wholiked strawberries, I think.
So weird, random details.
Yeah, those are interestingdetails that you wrote.
Oh, and the Reavers.
(02:54):
Yeah, the Reavers, which werehorrifying.
So tell me, why are we talkingabout Firefly and Serenity today
?
Speaker 1 (03:03):
Yeah, so we've been talking a little bit about
science fiction recently.
It's been on my mind and we'vebeen thinking about, you know,
our dad and science fiction, andthis was one that we were
already both out of the housebecause it was like oh two was
when it, when it aired, oh twoor three, and then the movie was
in 05.
But so we were both already outof the house, but this was one
that, like dad really loved, itwas Cowboys in Space, which was
(03:25):
like two of his favorite genres,and so since we've been talking
about that a little bitrecently, it sort of came up and
I wanted to go back to it.
For that reason and also because, you know, you and I we
recently talked about fandoms inour Galaxy Quest episode and
we're sort of deeper intofandoms now than we were when we
(03:45):
were kids, and I think this wasthe Firefly fandom was one of
an early one where, like, thefan demand actually did result
in something happening, whichhas happened many times since,
but it was an early example ofthat, and so that was another
reason I wanted to sort of goback and you know, that popped
(04:06):
up in my head as a result of ourrecent conversations both about
science fiction and thinkingabout that and about fandoms.
So that's why, and let me justbriefly tell you what I kind of
want to talk about today beforeI do a, I'll do as concise as I
can synopsis, although we bothknow I'm really, really good at
concision here In some ways it'sa little easier because it's a
TV show, because it's more likeyou can just give us what the
(04:30):
yeah, I'll probably do.
The characters, yeah, yeah.
So I want to talk about there'sbeen a lot of ink and airtime
spilt about whether or not thisfranchise is feminist, which is
something I want to get into,and bigger than that, actually,
(04:51):
joss Whedon.
There's a lot of opinions aboutwhether or not Joss Whedon's
work is feminist or not.
So I want to talk about genderin the film and sort of the
difference between having strongfemale characters and being
feminist.
Like I'd like to kind of pullapart and discern between those
things.
I also want to name, like youtalked about, the fact.
So Inara is a companion, whichis the guild of prostitutes in
(05:12):
this future world that's beenenvisioned.
It's not regulated.
It's not that it's regulated orit's self-regulated because
there's a guild, so it's notthat it's government regulated
and it is to a certain extent,as you said, respectable.
But also, as you said, there'sthis kind of push me, pull me
about sex work.
(05:32):
So I want to talk about thatwithin the and this is kind of
in the context of, like our dad,like we didn't envision this
future.
It's like 500 years in thefuture where we have cowboys in
(05:54):
space but there is not a singlealien in sight and in fact, the
movie gave us an explanation ofhow the Reavers came to be, and
they are very much human.
They've lost their humanity,but they are very much human in
terms've lost their humanity butthey are very much human in
terms of like species, and Ithink that's really interesting
and I think that was one of thethings that dad really liked
about it.
So I think that's somethingthat I want to talk about.
(06:15):
But also, like in that sort ofquestion of like what that
future is with no aliens,there's also some things that,
like whedon, I think was thinkwas a writer at heart I've read
a little bit where, like whereother directors might allow
their actors to kind of likefeel into the character and ad
lib a bit Like Whedon wanted thedialogue delivered precisely as
(06:39):
he wrote it because he was awriter at heart, and that leads
to some interesting things, Ithink.
In the way that it maps out inthis show, for instance, he's
envisioning a time, 500 years inthe future, so everyone speaks
at least some Mandarin Chinese,which feels like a thing that
one would say like well, withthe way population is growing,
(07:00):
probably everyone speaks someChinese and we've seen that in
other places.
Blade Runner had the samelogical conclusion and yet not a
single character is of Asiandescent.
I was just going to ask that,Are there any?
No, no, no.
So there's some tension therewhich I want to get into my own
kind of reaction to this.
(07:21):
I loved this whole franchisefrom the moment I was exposed to
it.
I am a writer and so that focuson like sharp dialogue like
really appeals to me.
And now, watching it with amore critical eye, there are
moments which maybe I'll namethem where I'm like oh, that
would have read really nicelybut it actually doesn't make
(07:41):
sense because, like once it'slike done in the writer's mind,
like what does the othercharacter do?
He just sort of like walks awayawkwardly.
So I want to kind of get atthat reality, that comportment
of the artist, the auteur inthis case Joss Whedon as a
(08:02):
writer making something that isnot only written, and like what
works and what doesn't aboutthat.
I think that's kind of going tobe interesting for us.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
I just saw a meme on Writing, about Writing, that
said I hate how songs can justfade out at the end.
How come, when I don't know howto end a story, I can't just
let it go Fade out at the end,fade out.
And so I'm thinking like thatis like the difference between
writing a story and like havingsomething that is a different
(08:32):
genre.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
Yeah, A different medium.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
A different medium.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
Yeah, and Whedon did it well.
I don't want to suggestotherwise, but I think he led
with the writing.
Now there's a lot ofcontroversy about Whedon.
I actually don't want to spenda lot of time on that in our
hour together.
We have talked about it beforeand I can link in the show notes
to our episode about Buffy whenKate Moody came on to be our
(08:56):
guest.
So there's a lot out there.
The only thing I want to sayabout it and maybe we'll do
another episode, I think, likeNeil Gaiman, actually, I think
Joss Whedon had a very lonelyand awkward childhood because of
how smart and weird he was.
My read is that he was alwaysobserving so he could predict
(09:27):
how people would behave, buteveryone in the world was a
non-player character to him, andI think that's true of Neil
Gaiman as well.
There are no other players inthis game except for him, which
and also he's an astute observerof human behavior, and so he's
able to show us these storiesthat really ring true.
But he's just moving thingsaround on a board, and that's my
(09:50):
take on Whedon.
It is similar to that of Gaiman, and I don't actually want to
go any further than that.
I don't want to pull apart,like what do we do as the
consumers of the art?
We should have that episode,but I want to talk about Firefly
this time.
Fair enough, All right.
So let me see if I can set thestage about this franchise.
(10:10):
I'm not going to do a full plotsynopsis.
There are 14 episodes and afeature-length film, so I'm not
going to try, and you know, do aplot synopsis of the whole arc.
Rather I will talk about sortof the key recurring characters
and paint the background picture.
So we're approximately 500 yearsin the future.
(10:30):
This Earth, our Earth, has beencompletely used up and so
humanity left it and terraformedplanets throughout the universe
to greater and lesser extent.
In the planets sort of closerto one another I guess they call
them the core planets createdthis group called the Alliance,
(10:51):
which is a united government,and they had most of the
resources.
And then the outer planets,further from the core, have
fewer resources and less accessto sort of the 500 years in the
future technology and they'reliving much more like american
western frontier.
There was a civil war, foughtand lost by the rebels, and it's
(11:18):
now six years later when wemeet our key cast n Nathan
Fillion's character.
Malcolm Reynolds was a sergeantin the brown coats was what the
rebels called themselves andexperienced extreme losses.
In fact, the series opens in thepilot, which did not air first,
(11:41):
with a battle scene where hethinks that things are turning
around and it's actually theexact opposite and, like,
everyone in his platoon getskilled, except for him and his
second in command, Zoe, playedby Gina Torres.
So now it's six years later andhe has a ship and he's
basically just trying to liveoff the grid.
(12:03):
A bit of a mercenary like,takes jobs as he gets them.
So on his crew is Zoe, GinaTorres, who was in the war with
him.
His pilot is Wash, played byAlan Tudyuk, who is Zoe's
husband.
I have no idea if I'mpronouncing his name correctly,
but Wash, I know I'm pronouncingthat correctly.
I think it's.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Tudyk, but I might be wrong.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
Thank you.
Then we have Inara, who youremember she's the companion
played by Marina Baccarin, jane,who's the doctor, and Shepard
(12:53):
Book, played by Ron Glass, sohe's a preacher.
And there's another guy whosename I don't remember he turned
out to be a bad guy and in thecargo, hold in a box, is Simon's
sister, river Tam, played bySummer Glau.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Their names are so similar, I love it, I remembered
the character's name is Summerinstead of River.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
Yeah, it's the actress's name.
And River is beyond a geniusLike she is out of this world,
smart and also, to a degree, agenius Like she is out of this
world, smart and also, to adegree, a psychic.
And the Alliance had sort oflured her into an academy where
they did experiments on her.
They basically turned her intoa weapon.
We don't fully learn that untillater.
(13:38):
So Simon and River are wantedby the Alliance, so they're
fugitives.
Mal has no love of the Alliance, since he was on the side of
the rebels in the Civil War, sohe decides to let them stay.
And what we get?
Speaker 2 (14:00):
is this, isn't there like an engineer too?
Oh yes, kaylee, thank you.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
Yes, kaylee is the mechanic and she is played by
jewel state.
And kaylee is another sort ofprodigy where she's not trained,
just knows how engines workintuitively and she's like a
master mechanic and can fixanything.
And she's like a mastermechanic and can fix anything.
She's also like adorable.
(14:27):
She totally has the hots forSimon.
He's kind of busy like tryingto like not die and save his
very damaged, very gifted sister.
So that's our cast of charactersand we get to know each of them
(14:53):
relatively well, except River,mostly a plot device, and mal is
definitely our hero, right,like I mean, each of them has a
role but like mal, as thecaptain, is our hero and he has
this integrity.
But it's like honor amongthieves, like we watch him from
the very beginning, kill people,double cross folks, like we
learned that he in the pastthere was somebody that he wants
to go see who tried to shoothim because of a deal combat.
(15:13):
Like he's this anti-hero who'salso a hero, which is kind of
fascinating, I think.
But we're meant to see him asthis sort of like tough guy with
a heart of gold.
Right, and he's definitely ourhero.
But we're meant to see him asthis sort of like tough guy with
a heart of gold Right, and he'sdefinitely our hero.
And what's also interestingabout him is Fillion is very
handsome.
I think he's still veryhandsome, but back then when he
(15:33):
was I mean this is 20 years agoand like he was a heartthrob
yeah.
He really was, and also he tendsto be comic relief often, which
I think is also like a reallyinteresting move on whedon's
part.
You know that he took this veryhandsome man and we get to see
(15:55):
him handsome, we get to see himshirtless occasionally, you know
, but we also see him sort ofridiculous, you know, or like in
some way kind of made to looksilly or left holding whatever I
can't think of the idiom, butyou know what I mean Like.
and there's this, this comicrelief at his expense somewhat
(16:15):
regularly which is another sortof interesting way in which I
think Whedon understands tropeswell and then subverts them just
enough to delight us and Ithink that's an example of one
of the ways that he does that.
Okay, so in this universe, 500years in the future, it's sort
(16:38):
of like think Hunger Games,right, because we've got the
folks in the center who've got alot of resources and the folks
on the edges who don't, andthey're definitely suffering.
And now we've got our crew onthe ship which is called
Serenity that's the name of theship.
It's a Firefly class, hence thename of the show, and they're
kind of Robin Hood.
They're looking for jobs wherethey can steal stuff or move
(17:00):
stuff or whatever, and you know,and make money at it.
But we are shown over and overagain that, to the extent that
he is able, mal wants to do itin such a way that he's stealing
from the Alliance to help outfolks on the outer planets, like
folks who have less.
The bad guys there's sort of twovillains there's the Alliance
(17:25):
who are bureaucratic,out-of-touch, kafkaesque
bureaucrats, and then there'sthe Reavers, which you remember,
and the Reavers are human butmonsters, like absolute monsters
, and when we are told whatthey're going to do because
(17:46):
we're told many times, like thepeople in the in the core and
the alliance believe that thisis like a myth, like campfire
stories, that they're not real.
They're very real, but everytime we're told what they're
going to do, they'll rape us todeath.
Then they'll eat us and they'llturn their our skins into their
clothing and if we're very,very, they'll do it in that
order.
So, like these guys areboogeymen Yikes Boogeymen Like
(18:11):
they cut on themselves and stufflike bad, real bad.
So that's kind of the universethat we're in and the show, the
14 episodes, there's variousadventures, it's episodic, where
we get to see some backstoryand we get to see some character
development, and it'sdelightful, it's really
delightful.
I think whedon tends to likekind of frame stories.
(18:35):
The first few minutes we seesomething and then two hours
earlier or whatever like, andthen we and then we we catch up
with ourselves from thebeginning.
He tends to like that frame andin that frame too there's one
episode Out of Gas I believeit's called where through that
we also get a whole bunch ofbackstory through flashbacks,
(18:58):
which is, I think some folksmight find it hard to follow
because it's not linearstorytelling.
I found it absolutelydelightful.
So, yeah, that wasn't much of asynopsis, but that's the kind
of universe in which we'reworking Among the crew.
(19:18):
Zoe and Wash so the formerveteran that he brought with him
and Wash, the pilot, aremarried.
Serious sexual tension betweenthem and romantic tension and
like all of the mutual piningthat makes for great fan fiction
and like really shitty actualhuman romance.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
Yeah, yeah, but since it's only 14 episodes, it works
.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
We'll talk about that .
All right, I haven't seen it in10 years, so Kaylee and Simon
also have some tension, whichgets relieved in the movie.
But I mean, he's kind ofdistracted and she does the
mutual pining or the piningthing, like with this kind of
she ends up because she's like alike doubts her attractiveness
(20:06):
and doubts her desirability orworthiness or whatever it ends
up she ends up becoming thatshe's beautiful because she
doesn't know if she's beautiful.
It's kind of gross.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
Yeah, you know, the other thing that's gross that I
remember about Kaylee was thatshe gained like 20 pounds for
the show because she wassupposed to be a little bit
overweight and then when themovie was greenlit, it happened
quickly and she lost the weightand come back to her natural
weight and so she didn't havetime to to bulk up again and
(20:39):
like I read that going like shewent what yeah, she's not
overweight, she's not evenremotely overweight during the
show.
No, and like she's adorable.
Yeah, she's adorable and Weird.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
I didn't know that.
I did not know that there'ssome tension, not sexual.
Well, there probably are someshippers, but I'm not going
there Because Mal, actually, inthe flashback from five years
(21:20):
ago or six years ago in the war,we see him kiss a cross right
before disaster and, like all ofhis people, die, and so he has
some like serious resentmentagainst God, I guess, and
religion, and so Shepard Book,who is a preacher.
There's some explicit tensionbetween them.
There's also tension betweenJane the muscle and pretty much
everybody.
So that's sort of the cultureon the ship.
Oh, shepard Buck pays for hisfare with strawberries.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
That's why I remember the story.
That's what it was.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
That's what I remember, because they don't
have like actual fresh food mostof the time.
So since I just was namingrelationships, let me start
there.
Actually let me start withgender and Bechdel and then move
into relationships.
So the Bechdel test listenersreminder from Alison Bechdel we
ask ourselves three questions.
(22:04):
Are there at least two namedfemale characters?
Do they talk to one another anddo they talk to one another
about something other than a manor a boy?
They talk to one another and dothey talk to one another about
something other than a man or aboy?
Now, if we look at Firefly andSerenity, in total, yes, it
passes Bechdel, but if we lookat any one individual episode,
it may or may not pass thatthird question.
So there are several namedfemale characters who are not
(22:31):
cardboard cutouts.
River's a little bit of acardboard cutout but Zoe and
Kaylee and Inara are all likeactual characters Fully formed
yeah.
And they talk to one another,but they're often talking to one
another about a man, about Malor about Simon, so in any given
episode it may not pass specktell completely.
(22:54):
So that's worth noting, yeah,especially like when we get into
the question about whether ornot this is a feminist franchise
.
And then let's talk aboutrelationships, let's talk about
romance, and like part of what Ifound delightful about this 20
years ago was the romance andnow watching it, I'm watching
(23:17):
and Zoe and Wash have a greatrelationship.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
I remember really loving their marriage.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
They have a great relationship and the way that
Wash interacts with Zoe isdelightful and like real.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
It's like there's a moment where he knows that she
could like Kill him.
Kill a moment where he knowsthat she could like kill him.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
kill him, and he loves that about her yes, but
also like there's a moment wherethey're arguing in one of the
episodes where she's gettingreally agitated and he's not
sure why, or he thinks she'soverreacting, basically, and
she's like this is serious andhe's like this is serious and
he's like I'm getting that, butit's not like you're
(23:56):
overreacting.
He doesn't say that, he doesnot belittle her, he sort of is
like yeah, I'm getting that.
And there's that specific momentbetween the two of them just
felt like arguing among equals,which I really really appreciate
, even in Rewatch.
(24:17):
So that relationship feelsreally good to me, like a good
model of heterosexual coupling.
It is the only example.
So Inara, who was born on theplanet where the academy is for
companions like, this was alwaysher path.
(24:37):
So she's been trained to beattuned to other human beings
from childhood and yet thesexual tension and the
misunderstanding and the talkingpast each other that happens
between her and Mal is straightout of 2005.
(24:57):
And that feels disappointing,because part of, I think, what
can be delightful about sciencefiction is when we sort of say
like okay, well, what if?
And then we spin out thelogical conclusions and I think
we didn't start to do that.
Say like okay, well, what if?
And then we spin out thelogical conclusions and I think
(25:24):
Whedon started to do that withlike what if sex work, if, like,
elevated to an art form, becamesort of a respectable
profession?
Like what would that look likeand would it be respected
everywhere?
And like he asked thosequestions and gave us some
really interesting answers butdidn't think about how that
would work out with someone withwhom she was actually like,
potentially interested inromantically.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
I'd like to stay on this for a second, just that,
because that that really sparkedsomething in me.
So the thing that I remember,that I remember kind of
bothering me a little bit ormaybe I don't know.
So companions are respected,but anytime Mal is annoyed at
Inara, he uses kind ofderogatory terms for prostitutes
(26:06):
to her and she's like that isnot what I am and that felt icky
, not what I am and that felticky.
Now I'm thinking about becausethere are we have had that
happen where professions becomeelevated over time.
So I'm thinking like doctorsdoctors used to be that was kind
of like a lower classprofession.
That was now.
(26:26):
It was never had the stigmathat sex work has, but it was
not something like a gentleman'sson would do, because it would
be like being a shopkeeper.
But now, like you know, youhave a doctor in the family.
That is something you bragabout to everyone.
This is amazing.
I have a doctor in the familyand so I'm thinking about like
(26:48):
and I guess the difference isthat a doctor was never, never
carried the stigma thatprostitution and sex work does,
but like calling someone asawbones when you're annoyed at
them.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
Yeah, I think it's also to Whedon's credit on this
one in particular, like becauseof the way that he has built
this universe with the centralplanets and the outer planets
central planets and the outerplanets and we see that there
are different cultures, like inthe episode called our mrs
reynolds, where mal accidentallygets married on an outer planet
(27:20):
.
I remember that one.
Yeah, because he doesn't knowthat's what's happening.
He doesn't know that when thispretty girl like puts flowers on
his head and gives him a bowlto drink from that.
that's a marriage ceremony inthat she talks about having been
in the maiden house like justwaiting to be basically sold off
for marriage, and so wedefinitely get the sense that
(27:44):
there are these differentcultures within the broader
alliance culture who havedifferent attitudes.
I think it is within theuniverse of serenity and fly or
fly.
I think it is cohesive thatamong the alliance companion is
a respected and that no onewithin the alliance kind of
(28:07):
culture would call her a whore,that's the word that he uses,
but that's not where Mal's from.
Gotcha and he's actually verylike, kind of antithetical to
alliance culture, and so I thinkthat tension actually does make
sense, cohesive, like it'scomprehensible within the
universe that has been builtwithin the world, that's been
(28:28):
built within this franchise.
Okay, that makes sense, butlet's actually stay with sex
work within this franchise.
Okay, that makes sense, butlet's actually stay with sex
work within this franchise.
This girl who he accidentallymarries turns out to be actually
a trained companion who is nowgone rogue and mercenary and
(28:49):
tricked him and tricked him, andso I mean that episode in
particular is like I couldprobably do a full episode of
ours, on just that episode,because there's some very like
feminist sentences.
Right when we have Mal sort ofsaying to Saffron this girl like
(29:10):
hey, nobody can own you, that'snot how this works, like you're
a full person, which soundsvery feminist, except that it's
like a dude saying it to a woman.
Yeah, and she turns out to be awoman who, like was using, was
very savvy and using her sexualwiles to trick him, which then
(29:31):
just sort of reinforces the ideathat the 20th century idea that
, like men have to be careful of, like conniving women, Well,
and isn't like?
Speaker 2 (29:42):
one of the plot points of that is like he's like
no, no, I'm not going to sleepwith you You're?
You know this innocent youngwoman who has no idea what's
going on?
I'm not going to do that.
But she, like, seduces him andhe's like yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
I mean she shows up in his bed naked, yeah, and then
she has like a drug on her lips, yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
And knocks him out.
I remember reading something orsomething we're talking about,
how like Mal is not a hero inthat moment.
If, watching that, we'reinvited to be like, how could
you do anything else?
Look at that beautiful woman inyour bed and like, easily, you
can easily do something elsebecause it is inappropriate and
(30:20):
he says it at the time.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
I mean, he actually says that.
Mal says that in the moment.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
Well, does he say like I'm going to hell or
something?
Speaker 1 (30:25):
Well, shepard Bookhead told him that there's a
special, special level on hell.
For he said, if you take sexualadvantage of that girl, you
will go to a special level onhell.
For he said, if you take sexualadvantage of that girl, you
will go to a special level ofhell reserved for child
predators and people who talk inthe theater, in the theater and
so he says, yeah, I'm going tospecial hell, or something like
that as he kisses her back.
So yeah, yeah, I mean.
(30:46):
So there's that moment in thisstory arc and that's one of my
favorite episodes in partbecause of at the end, and nara
actually like, oh mal, you sweetidiot, like she kisses him when
she finds him knocked out.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
And then she gets knocked out which you know.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
20 years ago, I thought was the height of
romance.
Yeah, yeah but then there thereare other episodes how do I
want to say the only women whoshow up as like guest stars, you
know, like in one episode or intwo episodes.
The vast majority, if not allof them, are prostitutes or
(31:24):
companions or both?
Speaker 2 (31:26):
Are you making a difference between prostitute
and companion?
Speaker 1 (31:29):
Yes, I am Well companions are prostitutes who
are like at the like guild level.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
Right.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
Like they're masters of their craft.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
Okay, they went to you, know they went to the
academy, so they have a PhD.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
Yes, as opposed to just some like, as opposed to
someone who like dabbles Put outa shingle.
Yeah, they're not doodlers,they're artists.
And there's one episode wherewe meet a former classmate of
Inara's who is now running abrothel on an outer planet, and
the girls in her employ are nottrained companions.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
I see they are prostitutes.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
Okay, and so there's this, like there's this tension
that I don't even quite knowwhat to do with, where I think
that, like I actually thinkWhedon thought he was being
feminist, right explicitly so,and I'm not sure that he
actually was he gave us somekick-ass female characters,
(32:26):
which is on the way to feminism,but it's not all the way there.
And I think, and like it's true, that the sex workers that we
meet, even the prostitutes whoare not trained companions,
don't have pimps, they have fullagency, they choose their
clients, like the things thatyou know kind of give dignity to
(32:51):
sex work and make it work andnot servitude.
And there's this still, likethis, push me, pull me.
Like in that episode I justnamed, where there's the brothel
, like there's a scene that'svery disturbing with one of the
women who has betrayed hersisters from the brothel for
(33:12):
money.
And the man, the leader of thebad guys, is like now you're
going to show everyone a woman'splace and he makes her kneel
and go down on him Like on abalcony, yeah, yeah.
And like we're supposed toreact that way, but also we see
it happen.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
Like we don't see the whole blowjob, but we know
what's happening.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
And so like there's that sort of like, I don't know,
it leaves me feeling icky inways that I'm not sure I saw 20
years ago.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
So I think there's also part of the kind of tension
that I'm feeling is that Ithink this show, this franchise,
is sex positive, but I'm notsure it's as sex worker positive
(34:08):
or as woman positive as Whedonthought that it was, or as I
thought that it was 20 years agowhen I was watching it.
All right, let me talk aboutthe storytelling piece now.
So there's a scene in the pilotwhere Simon, the doctor, who's
a fugitive kind of confronts Mal.
This is near the end and islike why are you even letting us
(34:30):
stay?
And they go back and forth inthis sort of clipped pithy back
and forth and it ends with Malsort of saying like it's enough,
like I'm still flying, it'senough, and like there's no real
answer that Simon could give.
Or let me restate that I thinkthe writer in me says that's a
(34:53):
complete thought.
But the human being who actuallyhas conversations with other
human beings is like theconversation isn't actually over
, right.
So, like this time watching it,I'm like what does Simon do now
?
And he just, like the camera,watches Nathan Fillion look off
it, you know out the window ofthe spaceship because he's
flying, he's, you know, at thehelm and sort of like this cute
(35:18):
little smile and in thebackground Simon just walks away
.
So it's like the song fades outon Simon and, as a writer,
chef's kiss.
It's beautiful dialogue and aslike a viewer, I'm like I think
someone would have saidsomething else.
(35:40):
You know, and there are othermoments sort of like that or not
precisely, but sort of where,again, whedon is a writer first
and uses this weird flowerylanguage which is kind of fun,
like it's a cowboy show and he'sgot them like riding horses and
oxen and stuff, and so likethey use weird kind of
(36:04):
old-fashioned sort of whichfeels really cunning hat, cool,
yeah, or like.
There's one point where Kayleesays I ain't had nothing between
my nethers that ain't run onbatteries in over a year and
like, and Mal says I don't needto hear more about that and Jane
says I'd like to, but the useof the phrase nethers like, and
(36:27):
there are other moments likethat where they say I suppose
and like, like, just sort oflike folksy and old fashioned,
and also they speak Mandarin andlike I loved it and like I
loved it.
I don't know that it's actuallylike.
Just based on the way thatlanguage we've seen language in
the past 20 years, it doesn'tfeel true and like it's Cowboys
(36:51):
in Space Trace, like why are youlooking for true but also
science fiction?
Like he's taking it seriously.
He actually is trying to askthe questions like what, if?
What would it look like?
I think the language of Fireflyand Serenity, as much as I love
it, is not what it would looklike.
So that's like a tension thatI'm seeing now that I did not
(37:16):
see at all 20 years ago.
I just ate it up.
I just ate it up.
I loved it.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
You know I'm thinking about the.
What you're talking about,about the writing, where it's
like chef's kiss.
But it doesn't really work inthis medium, exactly because
that's not how human beings haveconversations.
Similar to how, like, nobodyever says goodbye on telephones
in movies, and once you see ityou can't unsee it.
(37:43):
But at the same time it's justlike.
There are things that I justexcuse.
So, for instance, enormousapartments in New York City, in
sitcoms, because logisticallythat's all that's going to work,
not saying goodbye when youhang up the phone, those sorts
of things or like peoplespeaking English in the ancient
Near East.
Yes, those sorts of things right, or like people speaking
(38:04):
english in ancient, in theancient near east, yes, but what
it sounds like you'repinpointing here is like an
incomplete job of the writer, solike or like he's refraining
from killing his darlings.
Speaker 1 (38:22):
Yes, it is that.
And the incomplete yes, boththe incomplete job and the
refraining from killing darlings.
Yes, yes, and the darlings aredarling and I loved them the
first time I watched it.
But the incomplete shows up inthe fact that they all speak at
least some Mandarin and thereare no people of Asian descent
Right Like that's where the sortof incompleteness is.
(38:44):
It may be the case I did not dolike a very careful line by line
analysis, friends but it may bethe case that Alliance folk
speak with more sort of standardgrammar and lexicon than the
folks like Kaylee and Mal whoare meant to have been from
outer worlds.
That may be the case, I don'tknow.
(39:05):
But even sort of the idea thatthere's something poetic about
the idea that the language andthe dialect would have reverted
to I don't know Appalachia inthese worlds that look like
Appalachia, I don't think it'sactually.
It's a darling, I guess, ormaybe it's a shorthand, maybe
(39:26):
I'm not being fair.
Speaker 2 (39:28):
Now, to be fair, to Whedon the Appalachian dialect.
As I understand it, linguistsbelieve it is the closest to the
English dialect from thesettlers who came to America.
Speaker 1 (39:39):
Yeah, I've heard that too.
I've heard that too.
Speaker 2 (39:42):
So things do linger Linger for a long time.
Speaker 1 (39:46):
Yeah, I'm not sure that that kind of linguistic
history is what he had in mind,though, because he also shoved
the Mandarin in.
Speaker 2 (39:56):
Yeah, and it's lingered the way that it has,
because, because, the cultureare so isolated, yes, and people
stayed.
They didn't go to far-flungcults, they weren't you know,
settlers on far, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
So yeah.
So the last thing I want toname, which I didn't say in my
you know initial but I just wantto like lift it up here name,
which I didn't say in my youknow initial but I just want to
like lift it up here in terms ofstorytelling and killing
darlings.
He literally kills twocharacters in like major
characters, like it, if the, ifwe, if serenity is fan fiction
(40:32):
of firefly, like mind, the tags,friends, major character death
and it's both like shocking andalso I have to you know,
grudging respect, like that'swhat the story needed, that's
what the, that's what the storydemanded.
Shepherd book would not havesurvived the attack of the you
(40:55):
know there's in the movie.
The alliance has said in a sentan assassin.
It's the movie is like kind ofafter the show but also kind of
rewrites a little bit.
There's some continuity issuesthat, if you really care like
the Firefly, serenity fans like,go check it out on the wiki.
I'm not deep enough in the weedsto get into that, but the
(41:17):
Alliance has sent an assassin toget River and through the
course of running from him wediscover actually that the
Alliance created the Reaversaccidentally.
The assassin destroys all ofthe safe houses where Serenity
would go, including now.
Shepard Book is off the shipand was running his own little
(41:38):
settlement called Haven, and theAlliance destroys all of it,
kills them all, and Shepard Bookwouldn't have survived.
I think, if that is thestoryline that we were writing,
that is what would have happenedNow.
Wash dies right before theclimax of the film, which I
don't think was required by thestory, but it did feel useful
(42:01):
insofar as, like we're on theedge of our seats, as the
viewers, like our guys are inperil, like our beloved heroes
are in peril, having one of themactually die lets us know this
is real.
This shit is real and we're notpulling punches and it's a
(42:22):
universally beloved charactertoo.
Speaker 2 (42:25):
Like I think if Jane had died it would have been like
, well yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:30):
No, I think you're right, Because Jane is a dick
Like.
He says misogynist things, hesays terrible things that, to be
fair to the show, thecharacters call him on Like when
he says awful shit.
people call him on it and likeconfront him and at one point,
because he does something awfullike Mal, almost puts him out
(42:50):
the airlock.
But Wash, everybody loved, likehe just was like this goofy.
He's a very skilled pilot butjust this like goofy guy who
like adores his wife and likesthe job you know.
So, yeah, I think you're.
I think you're right thatkilling wash in particular not
(43:11):
jane, I think kaylee would havehad a similar effect yeah,
really raised the stakes for thefans.
I will say that's specificallythe Firefly fans.
I actually encountered thisfranchise the wrong way around.
I was not a Firefly fan.
I was at our dad's friend'shouse, alan's house, and it was
(43:32):
new, and I watched it with theirfamily.
Speaker 2 (43:36):
The Serenity, serenity.
Speaker 1 (43:38):
And I had never seen Firefly and I didn't know what
was going on and I was like whatis she wearing?
Why is she wearing that inspace?
About an aura?
Speaker 2 (43:45):
because I didn't, I did not understand like why
would you?
Speaker 1 (43:47):
wear that on a spaceship.
So I wasn't quite as moved bywash's death the first time
around because I didn't havethat background.
So if you took serenity as astandalone which I think you can
, actually it's it a good film.
But for those who were comingin which is the reason it was
made having him die in thatmoment really raised the stakes
in a way, so that we understoodthat we're taking this story to
(44:11):
its logical conclusions,whatever they might be.
Whedon is a good storyteller.
He's a really good storyteller.
Like, I'm not making a judgmenton his character, but I think
the fact that Wash and StepperBook die in the movie is
actually evidence of his goodstorytelling.
Speaker 2 (44:31):
Yeah, we're running a little short on time.
You have not yet gotten to theno aliens.
Oh, thank you.
Speaker 1 (44:36):
Yes, so one of the things that like I think is is
really interesting about thisand that the movie like really
tied up neatly is the fact that,like Earth dried, like we used
it up and we went out there, and, unlike Star Trek, where they
use like new alien cultures asthe kind of episodic plots plot,
(45:06):
there are no aliens.
It's not a shortcut.
He refused to take thatshortcut.
There's a shortcut to say like,well, what if there's an alien
race?
And they do, blah, blah, blah.
You know, and there areinteresting questions to ask and
answer with that kind ofshortcut.
We didn't, didn't do that and Ithink there's something again
like really, really interestingand like speaks to his power as
a storyteller and tim manier too, who who helped write it, that
(45:29):
they sort of said like okay,well, what does it look like?
What does space travel looklike?
What happens to human culture?
Just human culture.
We don't need intervention ofoutsiders outside of the human
race in order to like have thedrama and the conflict and the
war and the mistreatment.
(45:50):
We don't need Martians to makethat happen.
Like let's take this reallyseriously in humanity, and I
remember dad really appreciatingthat in humanity and I remember
dad really appreciating that.
Speaker 2 (46:01):
Yeah, you know this reminds me of the way that
you're putting this I talked, Idon't remember, but at some
point about.
There was this historicalfantasy that I read, where it
was what if there were zombiesin Victorian England?
But what had happened was therewas actual magic and there was
in the midst of a war the Frenchsent tainted face powder, I
(46:24):
remember you telling me aboutthat.
So yeah, so it went to like thevery rich women and because of
that, like an entire ecosystemgrew up around.
Like protecting these women, solike there was a company that
would send them like brainslices so that they could eat.
And you know, it was okay to bea zombie.
(46:44):
But at the same time there weremen who you know, used this as
an opportunity to get rid of awife.
Well, she's dead, so I canremarry, and so this wife is
without.
So, like it thought through thelogical consequences.
Monsters and Manners, I think,is the name of the book, but it
thought through the logicalconsequences of like, well, what
if this happened in somethingwhere we know how the society is
(47:05):
?
And so it feels like what wouldour society be like in space?
Speaker 1 (47:09):
Right, and like really thought through the
logical consequences of that andhis answer is like, just like
here, with power hoarding andwealth hoarding and you know,
and like ridiculous bureaucracy.
Speaker 2 (47:24):
Yeah, and the willingness to destroy anything,
to gain more power, to createweapons, to exploit talents and
the how the Reavers were createdwas a like, really really like
affected me, Like that'ssomething that has stuck with me
(47:44):
.
Speaker 1 (47:45):
They pumped some sort of drug into the air in the
terraformed planet that wassupposed to like calm people.
It was like Xanax, it wassupposed to just calm people
down.
And most of the population justlaid down and died, but like
one.
Yeah one percent, one tenth ofone percent.
It had the opposite effect andthey got extremely aggressive
and they became Reavers.
Speaker 2 (48:03):
Yeah, yeah, and like that stuck with me in part
because I'm like, oh yeah, thatseems like something.
Speaker 1 (48:09):
Totally.
Speaker 2 (48:10):
Totally something we would do.
Totally something, we would doit also.
It contextualize the Reavers,because they're a tragedy.
Speaker 1 (48:17):
Yeah, although it's interesting, we don't really
have time for it.
No-transcript, which I supposeis a trauma response, but that
(48:44):
was like a different explanationfrom the show than what we had
with this sort of drug in theair.
I think that we can reconcilethe two, but I actually think
the solution in the movie was alater decision on whedon's part.
It worked, it worked, but oh,yeah, yeah all right, let me see
(49:10):
if I can remember the thingsthat we talked about.
There was a lot.
Oh yeah.
Yeah, it's sex positive, butit's not always sex worker
positive.
We've got kick-ass femalecharacters, but they don't
always pass Bechdel.
And we've got these kick-assfemale characters who still end
(49:30):
up in these ridiculousmiscommunication oh, will he or
won't he?
She's beautiful because shedoesn't know she's beautiful.
Kind of ridiculousness.
Beautiful because she doesn'tknow she's beautiful.
Kind of ridiculousness.
That deeply like, that, justlike resonated at the same
frequency as my mental furniture.
At the time I talked about therelationships that we do see.
(49:52):
Wash and zoe is really lovelyand that was really nice.
But then there's this, thepining that we have with anara
and Mal and Simon and Kaylee.
There's also all of the womenwe meet off the ship.
Most of them are prostitutes orcompanions, if they have any
kind of real speaking role,which I'm not sure what that
(50:16):
means in Whedon's imagination ofwhat the world is or what the
future is there are other jobsout there.
Speaker 2 (50:24):
Yeah, yeah, and there were other jobs out there in
the Old West too.
Speaker 1 (50:28):
And we even name that when Saffron, before we know
she's actually a trainedcompanion in this mal-explaining
feminism to Saffron momentshe's like there's work to be had
.
You can work in a factory oryou can work in a field, or,
like we hear it from thecharacter's mouths, it was
cowboys in space, which isreally fun, and part of the way
(50:50):
that that like gets conveyed isthe Appalachian type, folksy,
kind of archaic lexicon thatthey use, which is really
delightful.
And then when I start toscratch the surface, I'm like,
hmm, I'm not so sure, and younamed it, that was maybe like we
(51:10):
didn't not, we didn't meanyou're not killing their
darlings or not being willing tokill their darlings, they were
willing to kill their characters.
And also and you named this, Ithink you're right is that not
sort of fully thinking it out?
Like not comprehensively?
So they thought about thelanguage, the fact that we would
all speak at least someMandarin Chinese, but they
didn't put any people of Asiandescent on the ship or really
(51:32):
any of the like characters, likemaybe an extra.
So that feels a littleinconsistent there.
I talked about Whedon as sort ofin the meta, like Neil Gaiman,
kind of being very smart andvery isolated but also a keen
observer of human behavior andthinking like no one else in the
(51:55):
world is another player.
They're all non-playercharacters.
Oh, I also talked about Mal,our hero, who's both a hero and
an anti-hero because he doesthings that are pretty
reprehensible, but he also hasthis integrity protects his crew
like crazy and like he's sortof the trope of like the tough
(52:16):
guy with the heart of gold.
I know I'm forgetting things.
What did I forget?
Speaker 2 (52:21):
We ended talking about the like how much Dad
appreciated the fact that therewere no aliens and that that was
.
It was clearly Whedon justthinking through.
Like what are the naturalconclusions?
Like?
If we put humanity in space,what would happen?
Speaker 1 (52:37):
Yes, thank you, and the answer is that it recreates
and reifies a lot of the thingsthat are wrong about human
culture on Earth.
Speaker 2 (52:46):
Yeah, because wherever you go, there you are
yeah.
Speaker 1 (52:48):
Yeah, thank you.
Well, I have to say like I'mrearranging my mental furniture
a little bit in this rewatch,but I still really like the
furniture it still really tiesthe room together.
I still really enjoyed it, likeeven these 20 years later.
So, for whatever that's worth,what are we talking about next
(53:09):
weekend?
Speaker 2 (53:10):
So next week I'm bringing you my deep thoughts
about poltergeist.
Oh shit, that scared the poopout of me Me too, I'm trying to
exercise a childhood demon Right, right.
Speaker 1 (53:21):
Well, nice pun, nice pun, all right.
Well until then.
Speaker 2 (53:26):
Until then.
Speaker 1 (53:28):
This show is a labor of love, but that doesn't make
it free to produce.
If you enjoy it even half asmuch as we do, please consider
helping to keep us overthinking.
You can support us at ourPatreon there's a link in the
show notes or leave a positivereview so others can find us and
, of course, share the show withyour people.
Thanks for listening.
(53:51):
Our theme music is ProfessorUmlaut by Kevin MacLeod from
incompetechcom.
Find full music credits in theshow notes.
Speaker 2 (54:00):
Thank you to Resonate Recordings for editing today's
episode.
Speaker 1 (54:03):
Until next time, remember pop culture is still
culture, and shouldn't you knowwhat's in your head?
Whedon, I think, was a writer at heart.
I've read a little bit whereother directors might allow
their actors to kind of feelinto the character and ad-lib a
bit.
Whedon wanted the dialoguedelivered precisely as he wrote
it, because he was a writer atheart, and that leads to some
(00:20):
interesting things, I think, inthe way that it maps out in this
show.
Have you ever had something youlove dismissed because it's
just pop culture, what othersmight deem stupid shit?
You know matters, you know it'sworth talking and thinking
about, and so do we.
So come overthink with us as wedelve into our deep thoughts
(00:44):
about stupid shit.
I'm Tracy Guy-Decker and you'relistening to Deep Thoughts
About Stupid Shit, because popculture is still culture, and
shouldn't you know what's inyour head?
On today's episode, I'll besharing my deep thoughts about
the Joss Whedon property,Firefly and Serenity with my
(01:09):
sister, Emily Guy-Burken, andwith you.
Let's dive in.
Okay, Em, I know you've seenthese because we've talked about
it, but tell me what is in yourhead about Firefly and Serenity
.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
So I know that this is one of those shows that was
like the victim of corporatemeddling.
So I know that I think it wasairing on Fox and they decided
that it was confusing and sothey aired it out of order, like
the second episode first andthen the first episode, and so
it did not get traction, exceptamong a very vocal fan base who
(01:41):
loved it because it's very, verywell done.
Vocal fan base who loved itbecause it's very, very well
done.
And so I know Joss Whedon madeSerenity to like finish the
story so that his fans couldhave like closure, the things
that I remember.
There's a cunning hat, the kindof tough guy he has, a hat that
someone knits for him.
That's cunning, oh, oh okayyeah, janeane's hat, jane,
(02:08):
jane's hat.
I remember inara and the kind oflike will they, won't they with
um nathan fillion's character,who's malcolm?
Yeah, mal mal and there's.
there's a point where everyone'swatching them with popcorn.
I guess they're meeting for thefirst time in a while and Inara
was a companion.
Companions were considered likelegitimate business people and
(02:33):
yet there was still some bakedin like ickiness about sex work.
So like it was like yes but no.
And oh, shepard Book.
I remember Shepard Book wholiked strawberries, I think.
So weird, random details.
Yeah, those are interestingdetails that you wrote.
Oh, and the Reavers.
(02:54):
Yeah, the Reavers, which werehorrifying.
So tell me, why are we talkingabout Firefly and Serenity today
?
Speaker 1 (03:03):
Yeah, so we've been talking a little bit about
science fiction recently.
It's been on my mind and we'vebeen thinking about, you know,
our dad and science fiction, andthis was one that we were
already both out of the housebecause it was like oh two was
when it, when it aired, oh twoor three, and then the movie was
in 05.
But so we were both already outof the house, but this was one
that, like dad really loved, itwas Cowboys in Space, which was
(03:25):
like two of his favorite genres,and so since we've been talking
about that a little bitrecently, it sort of came up and
I wanted to go back to it.
For that reason and also because, you know, you and I we
recently talked about fandoms inour Galaxy Quest episode and
we're sort of deeper intofandoms now than we were when we
(03:45):
were kids, and I think this wasthe Firefly fandom was one of
an early one where, like, thefan demand actually did result
in something happening, whichhas happened many times since,
but it was an early example ofthat, and so that was another
reason I wanted to sort of goback and you know, that popped
(04:06):
up in my head as a result of ourrecent conversations both about
science fiction and thinkingabout that and about fandoms.
So that's why, and let me justbriefly tell you what I kind of
want to talk about today beforeI do a, I'll do as concise as I
can synopsis, although we bothknow I'm really, really good at
concision here In some ways it'sa little easier because it's a
TV show, because it's more likeyou can just give us what the
(04:30):
yeah, I'll probably do.
The characters, yeah, yeah.
So I want to talk about there'sbeen a lot of ink and airtime
spilt about whether or not thisfranchise is feminist, which is
something I want to get into,and bigger than that, actually,
(04:51):
joss Whedon.
There's a lot of opinions aboutwhether or not Joss Whedon's
work is feminist or not.
So I want to talk about genderin the film and sort of the
difference between having strongfemale characters and being
feminist.
Like I'd like to kind of pullapart and discern between those
things.
I also want to name, like youtalked about, the fact.
So Inara is a companion, whichis the guild of prostitutes in
(05:12):
this future world that's beenenvisioned.
It's not regulated.
It's not that it's regulated orit's self-regulated because
there's a guild, so it's notthat it's government regulated
and it is to a certain extent,as you said, respectable.
But also, as you said, there'sthis kind of push me, pull me
about sex work.
(05:32):
So I want to talk about thatwithin the and this is kind of
in the context of, like our dad,like we didn't envision this
future.
It's like 500 years in thefuture where we have cowboys in
(05:54):
space but there is not a singlealien in sight and in fact, the
movie gave us an explanation ofhow the Reavers came to be, and
they are very much human.
They've lost their humanity,but they are very much human in
terms've lost their humanity butthey are very much human in
terms of like species, and Ithink that's really interesting
and I think that was one of thethings that dad really liked
about it.
So I think that's somethingthat I want to talk about.
(06:15):
But also, like in that sort ofquestion of like what that
future is with no aliens,there's also some things that,
like whedon, I think was thinkwas a writer at heart I've read
a little bit where, like whereother directors might allow
their actors to kind of likefeel into the character and ad
lib a bit Like Whedon wanted thedialogue delivered precisely as
(06:39):
he wrote it because he was awriter at heart, and that leads
to some interesting things, Ithink.
In the way that it maps out inthis show, for instance, he's
envisioning a time, 500 years inthe future, so everyone speaks
at least some Mandarin Chinese,which feels like a thing that
one would say like well, withthe way population is growing,
(07:00):
probably everyone speaks someChinese and we've seen that in
other places.
Blade Runner had the samelogical conclusion and yet not a
single character is of Asiandescent.
I was just going to ask that,Are there any?
No, no, no.
So there's some tension therewhich I want to get into my own
kind of reaction to this.
(07:21):
I loved this whole franchisefrom the moment I was exposed to
it.
I am a writer and so that focuson like sharp dialogue like
really appeals to me.
And now, watching it with amore critical eye, there are
moments which maybe I'll namethem where I'm like oh, that
would have read really nicelybut it actually doesn't make
(07:41):
sense because, like once it'slike done in the writer's mind,
like what does the othercharacter do?
He just sort of like walks awayawkwardly.
So I want to kind of get atthat reality, that comportment
of the artist, the auteur inthis case Joss Whedon as a
(08:02):
writer making something that isnot only written, and like what
works and what doesn't aboutthat.
I think that's kind of going tobe interesting for us.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
I just saw a meme on Writing, about Writing, that
said I hate how songs can justfade out at the end.
How come, when I don't know howto end a story, I can't just
let it go Fade out at the end,fade out.
And so I'm thinking like thatis like the difference between
writing a story and like havingsomething that is a different
(08:32):
genre.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
Yeah, A different medium.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
A different medium.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
Yeah, and Whedon did it well.
I don't want to suggestotherwise, but I think he led
with the writing.
Now there's a lot ofcontroversy about Whedon.
I actually don't want to spenda lot of time on that in our
hour together.
We have talked about it beforeand I can link in the show notes
to our episode about Buffy whenKate Moody came on to be our
(08:56):
guest.
So there's a lot out there.
The only thing I want to sayabout it and maybe we'll do
another episode, I think, likeNeil Gaiman, actually, I think
Joss Whedon had a very lonelyand awkward childhood because of
how smart and weird he was.
My read is that he was alwaysobserving so he could predict
(09:27):
how people would behave, buteveryone in the world was a
non-player character to him, andI think that's true of Neil
Gaiman as well.
There are no other players inthis game except for him, which
and also he's an astute observerof human behavior, and so he's
able to show us these storiesthat really ring true.
But he's just moving thingsaround on a board, and that's my
(09:50):
take on Whedon.
It is similar to that of Gaiman, and I don't actually want to
go any further than that.
I don't want to pull apart,like what do we do as the
consumers of the art?
We should have that episode,but I want to talk about Firefly
this time.
Fair enough, All right.
So let me see if I can set thestage about this franchise.
(10:10):
I'm not going to do a full plotsynopsis.
There are 14 episodes and afeature-length film, so I'm not
going to try, and you know, do aplot synopsis of the whole arc.
Rather I will talk about sortof the key recurring characters
and paint the background picture.
So we're approximately 500 yearsin the future.
(10:30):
This Earth, our Earth, has beencompletely used up and so
humanity left it and terraformedplanets throughout the universe
to greater and lesser extent.
In the planets sort of closerto one another I guess they call
them the core planets createdthis group called the Alliance,
(10:51):
which is a united government,and they had most of the
resources.
And then the outer planets,further from the core, have
fewer resources and less accessto sort of the 500 years in the
future technology and they'reliving much more like american
western frontier.
There was a civil war, foughtand lost by the rebels, and it's
(11:18):
now six years later when wemeet our key cast n Nathan
Fillion's character.
Malcolm Reynolds was a sergeantin the brown coats was what the
rebels called themselves andexperienced extreme losses.
In fact, the series opens in thepilot, which did not air first,
(11:41):
with a battle scene where hethinks that things are turning
around and it's actually theexact opposite and, like,
everyone in his platoon getskilled, except for him and his
second in command, Zoe, playedby Gina Torres.
So now it's six years later andhe has a ship and he's
basically just trying to liveoff the grid.
(12:03):
A bit of a mercenary like,takes jobs as he gets them.
So on his crew is Zoe, GinaTorres, who was in the war with
him.
His pilot is Wash, played byAlan Tudyuk, who is Zoe's
husband.
I have no idea if I'mpronouncing his name correctly,
but Wash, I know I'm pronouncingthat correctly.
I think it's.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Tudyk, but I might be wrong.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
Thank you.
Then we have Inara, who youremember she's the companion
played by Marina Baccarin, jane,who's the doctor, and Shepard
(12:53):
Book, played by Ron Glass, sohe's a preacher.
And there's another guy whosename I don't remember he turned
out to be a bad guy and in thecargo, hold in a box, is Simon's
sister, river Tam, played bySummer Glau.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Their names are so similar, I love it, I remembered
the character's name is Summerinstead of River.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
Yeah, it's the actress's name.
And River is beyond a geniusLike she is out of this world,
smart and also, to a degree, agenius Like she is out of this
world, smart and also, to adegree, a psychic.
And the Alliance had sort oflured her into an academy where
they did experiments on her.
They basically turned her intoa weapon.
We don't fully learn that untillater.
(13:38):
So Simon and River are wantedby the Alliance, so they're
fugitives.
Mal has no love of the Alliance, since he was on the side of
the rebels in the Civil War, sohe decides to let them stay.
And what we get?
Speaker 2 (14:00):
is this, isn't there like an engineer too?
Oh yes, kaylee, thank you.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
Yes, kaylee is the mechanic and she is played by
jewel state.
And kaylee is another sort ofprodigy where she's not trained,
just knows how engines workintuitively and she's like a
master mechanic and can fixanything.
And she's like a mastermechanic and can fix anything.
She's also like adorable.
(14:27):
She totally has the hots forSimon.
He's kind of busy like tryingto like not die and save his
very damaged, very gifted sister.
So that's our cast of charactersand we get to know each of them
(14:53):
relatively well, except River,mostly a plot device, and mal is
definitely our hero, right,like I mean, each of them has a
role but like mal, as thecaptain, is our hero and he has
this integrity.
But it's like honor amongthieves, like we watch him from
the very beginning, kill people,double cross folks, like we
learned that he in the pastthere was somebody that he wants
to go see who tried to shoothim because of a deal combat.
(15:13):
Like he's this anti-hero who'salso a hero, which is kind of
fascinating, I think.
But we're meant to see him asthis sort of like tough guy with
a heart of gold.
Right, and he's definitely ourhero.
But we're meant to see him asthis sort of like tough guy with
a heart of gold Right, and he'sdefinitely our hero.
And what's also interestingabout him is Fillion is very
handsome.
I think he's still veryhandsome, but back then when he
(15:33):
was I mean this is 20 years agoand like he was a heartthrob
yeah.
He really was, and also he tendsto be comic relief often, which
I think is also like a reallyinteresting move on whedon's
part.
You know that he took this veryhandsome man and we get to see
(15:55):
him handsome, we get to see himshirtless occasionally, you know
, but we also see him sort ofridiculous, you know, or like in
some way kind of made to looksilly or left holding whatever I
can't think of the idiom, butyou know what I mean Like.
and there's this, this comicrelief at his expense somewhat
(16:15):
regularly which is another sortof interesting way in which I
think Whedon understands tropeswell and then subverts them just
enough to delight us and Ithink that's an example of one
of the ways that he does that.
Okay, so in this universe, 500years in the future, it's sort
(16:38):
of like think Hunger Games,right, because we've got the
folks in the center who've got alot of resources and the folks
on the edges who don't, andthey're definitely suffering.
And now we've got our crew onthe ship which is called
Serenity that's the name of theship.
It's a Firefly class, hence thename of the show, and they're
kind of Robin Hood.
They're looking for jobs wherethey can steal stuff or move
(17:00):
stuff or whatever, and you know,and make money at it.
But we are shown over and overagain that, to the extent that
he is able, mal wants to do itin such a way that he's stealing
from the Alliance to help outfolks on the outer planets, like
folks who have less.
The bad guys there's sort of twovillains there's the Alliance
(17:25):
who are bureaucratic,out-of-touch, kafkaesque
bureaucrats, and then there'sthe Reavers, which you remember,
and the Reavers are human butmonsters, like absolute monsters
, and when we are told whatthey're going to do because
(17:46):
we're told many times, like thepeople in the in the core and
the alliance believe that thisis like a myth, like campfire
stories, that they're not real.
They're very real, but everytime we're told what they're
going to do, they'll rape us todeath.
Then they'll eat us and they'llturn their our skins into their
clothing and if we're very,very, they'll do it in that
order.
So, like these guys areboogeymen Yikes Boogeymen Like
(18:11):
they cut on themselves and stufflike bad, real bad.
So that's kind of the universethat we're in and the show, the
14 episodes, there's variousadventures, it's episodic, where
we get to see some backstoryand we get to see some character
development, and it'sdelightful, it's really
delightful.
I think whedon tends to likekind of frame stories.
(18:35):
The first few minutes we seesomething and then two hours
earlier or whatever like, andthen we and then we we catch up
with ourselves from thebeginning.
He tends to like that frame andin that frame too there's one
episode Out of Gas I believeit's called where through that
we also get a whole bunch ofbackstory through flashbacks,
(18:58):
which is, I think some folksmight find it hard to follow
because it's not linearstorytelling.
I found it absolutelydelightful.
So, yeah, that wasn't much of asynopsis, but that's the kind
of universe in which we'reworking Among the crew.
(19:18):
Zoe and Wash so the formerveteran that he brought with him
and Wash, the pilot, aremarried.
Serious sexual tension betweenthem and romantic tension and
like all of the mutual piningthat makes for great fan fiction
and like really shitty actualhuman romance.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
Yeah, yeah, but since it's only 14 episodes, it works
.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
We'll talk about that .
All right, I haven't seen it in10 years, so Kaylee and Simon
also have some tension, whichgets relieved in the movie.
But I mean, he's kind ofdistracted and she does the
mutual pining or the piningthing, like with this kind of
she ends up because she's like alike doubts her attractiveness
(20:06):
and doubts her desirability orworthiness or whatever it ends
up she ends up becoming thatshe's beautiful because she
doesn't know if she's beautiful.
It's kind of gross.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
Yeah, you know, the other thing that's gross that I
remember about Kaylee was thatshe gained like 20 pounds for
the show because she wassupposed to be a little bit
overweight and then when themovie was greenlit, it happened
quickly and she lost the weightand come back to her natural
weight and so she didn't havetime to to bulk up again and
(20:39):
like I read that going like shewent what yeah, she's not
overweight, she's not evenremotely overweight during the
show.
No, and like she's adorable.
Yeah, she's adorable and Weird.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
I didn't know that.
I did not know that there'ssome tension, not sexual.
Well, there probably are someshippers, but I'm not going
there Because Mal, actually, inthe flashback from five years
(21:20):
ago or six years ago in the war,we see him kiss a cross right
before disaster and, like all ofhis people, die, and so he has
some like serious resentmentagainst God, I guess, and
religion, and so Shepard Book,who is a preacher.
There's some explicit tensionbetween them.
There's also tension betweenJane the muscle and pretty much
everybody.
So that's sort of the cultureon the ship.
Oh, shepard Buck pays for hisfare with strawberries.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
That's why I remember the story.
That's what it was.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
That's what I remember, because they don't
have like actual fresh food mostof the time.
So since I just was namingrelationships, let me start
there.
Actually let me start withgender and Bechdel and then move
into relationships.
So the Bechdel test listenersreminder from Alison Bechdel we
ask ourselves three questions.
(22:04):
Are there at least two namedfemale characters?
Do they talk to one another anddo they talk to one another
about something other than a manor a boy?
They talk to one another and dothey talk to one another about
something other than a man or aboy?
Now, if we look at Firefly andSerenity, in total, yes, it
passes Bechdel, but if we lookat any one individual episode,
it may or may not pass thatthird question.
So there are several namedfemale characters who are not
(22:31):
cardboard cutouts.
River's a little bit of acardboard cutout but Zoe and
Kaylee and Inara are all likeactual characters Fully formed
yeah.
And they talk to one another,but they're often talking to one
another about a man, about Malor about Simon, so in any given
episode it may not pass specktell completely.
(22:54):
So that's worth noting, yeah,especially like when we get into
the question about whether ornot this is a feminist franchise
.
And then let's talk aboutrelationships, let's talk about
romance, and like part of what Ifound delightful about this 20
years ago was the romance andnow watching it, I'm watching
(23:17):
and Zoe and Wash have a greatrelationship.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
I remember really loving their marriage.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
They have a great relationship and the way that
Wash interacts with Zoe isdelightful and like real.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
It's like there's a moment where he knows that she
could like Kill him.
Kill a moment where he knowsthat she could like kill him.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
kill him, and he loves that about her yes, but
also like there's a moment wherethey're arguing in one of the
episodes where she's gettingreally agitated and he's not
sure why, or he thinks she'soverreacting, basically, and
she's like this is serious andhe's like this is serious and
he's like I'm getting that, butit's not like you're
(23:56):
overreacting.
He doesn't say that, he doesnot belittle her, he sort of is
like yeah, I'm getting that.
And there's that specific momentbetween the two of them just
felt like arguing among equals,which I really really appreciate
, even in Rewatch.
(24:17):
So that relationship feelsreally good to me, like a good
model of heterosexual coupling.
It is the only example.
So Inara, who was born on theplanet where the academy is for
companions like, this was alwaysher path.
(24:37):
So she's been trained to beattuned to other human beings
from childhood and yet thesexual tension and the
misunderstanding and the talkingpast each other that happens
between her and Mal is straightout of 2005.
(24:57):
And that feels disappointing,because part of, I think, what
can be delightful about sciencefiction is when we sort of say
like okay, well, what if?
And then we spin out thelogical conclusions and I think
we didn't start to do that.
Say like okay, well, what if?
And then we spin out thelogical conclusions and I think
(25:24):
Whedon started to do that withlike what if sex work, if, like,
elevated to an art form, becamesort of a respectable
profession?
Like what would that look likeand would it be respected
everywhere?
And like he asked thosequestions and gave us some
really interesting answers butdidn't think about how that
would work out with someone withwhom she was actually like,
potentially interested inromantically.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
I'd like to stay on this for a second, just that,
because that that really sparkedsomething in me.
So the thing that I remember,that I remember kind of
bothering me a little bit ormaybe I don't know.
So companions are respected,but anytime Mal is annoyed at
Inara, he uses kind ofderogatory terms for prostitutes
(26:06):
to her and she's like that isnot what I am and that felt icky
, not what I am and that felticky.
Now I'm thinking about becausethere are we have had that
happen where professions becomeelevated over time.
So I'm thinking like doctorsdoctors used to be that was kind
of like a lower classprofession.
That was now.
(26:26):
It was never had the stigmathat sex work has, but it was
not something like a gentleman'sson would do, because it would
be like being a shopkeeper.
But now, like you know, youhave a doctor in the family.
That is something you bragabout to everyone.
This is amazing.
I have a doctor in the familyand so I'm thinking about like
(26:48):
and I guess the difference isthat a doctor was never, never
carried the stigma thatprostitution and sex work does,
but like calling someone asawbones when you're annoyed at
them.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
Yeah, I think it's also to Whedon's credit on this
one in particular, like becauseof the way that he has built
this universe with the centralplanets and the outer planets
central planets and the outerplanets and we see that there
are different cultures, like inthe episode called our mrs
reynolds, where mal accidentallygets married on an outer planet
(27:20):
.
I remember that one.
Yeah, because he doesn't knowthat's what's happening.
He doesn't know that when thispretty girl like puts flowers on
his head and gives him a bowlto drink from that.
that's a marriage ceremony inthat she talks about having been
in the maiden house like justwaiting to be basically sold off
for marriage, and so wedefinitely get the sense that
(27:44):
there are these differentcultures within the broader
alliance culture who havedifferent attitudes.
I think it is within theuniverse of serenity and fly or
fly.
I think it is cohesive thatamong the alliance companion is
a respected and that no onewithin the alliance kind of
(28:07):
culture would call her a whore,that's the word that he uses,
but that's not where Mal's from.
Gotcha and he's actually verylike, kind of antithetical to
alliance culture, and so I thinkthat tension actually does make
sense, cohesive, like it'scomprehensible within the
universe that has been builtwithin the world, that's been
(28:28):
built within this franchise.
Okay, that makes sense, butlet's actually stay with sex
work within this franchise.
Okay, that makes sense, butlet's actually stay with sex
work within this franchise.
This girl who he accidentallymarries turns out to be actually
a trained companion who is nowgone rogue and mercenary and
(28:49):
tricked him and tricked him, andso I mean that episode in
particular is like I couldprobably do a full episode of
ours, on just that episode,because there's some very like
feminist sentences.
Right when we have Mal sort ofsaying to Saffron this girl like
(29:10):
hey, nobody can own you, that'snot how this works, like you're
a full person, which soundsvery feminist, except that it's
like a dude saying it to a woman.
Yeah, and she turns out to be awoman who, like was using, was
very savvy and using her sexualwiles to trick him, which then
(29:31):
just sort of reinforces the ideathat the 20th century idea that
, like men have to be careful of, like conniving women, Well,
and isn't like?
Speaker 2 (29:42):
one of the plot points of that is like he's like
no, no, I'm not going to sleepwith you You're?
You know this innocent youngwoman who has no idea what's
going on?
I'm not going to do that.
But she, like, seduces him andhe's like yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
I mean she shows up in his bed naked, yeah, and then
she has like a drug on her lips, yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
And knocks him out.
I remember reading something orsomething we're talking about,
how like Mal is not a hero inthat moment.
If, watching that, we'reinvited to be like, how could
you do anything else?
Look at that beautiful woman inyour bed and like, easily, you
can easily do something elsebecause it is inappropriate and
(30:20):
he says it at the time.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
I mean, he actually says that.
Mal says that in the moment.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
Well, does he say like I'm going to hell or
something?
Speaker 1 (30:25):
Well, shepard Bookhead told him that there's a
special, special level on hell.
For he said, if you take sexualadvantage of that girl, you
will go to a special level onhell.
For he said, if you take sexualadvantage of that girl, you
will go to a special level ofhell reserved for child
predators and people who talk inthe theater, in the theater and
so he says, yeah, I'm going tospecial hell, or something like
that as he kisses her back.
So yeah, yeah, I mean.
(30:46):
So there's that moment in thisstory arc and that's one of my
favorite episodes in partbecause of at the end, and nara
actually like, oh mal, you sweetidiot, like she kisses him when
she finds him knocked out.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
And then she gets knocked out which you know.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
20 years ago, I thought was the height of
romance.
Yeah, yeah but then there thereare other episodes how do I
want to say the only women whoshow up as like guest stars, you
know, like in one episode or intwo episodes.
The vast majority, if not allof them, are prostitutes or
(31:24):
companions or both?
Speaker 2 (31:26):
Are you making a difference between prostitute
and companion?
Speaker 1 (31:29):
Yes, I am Well companions are prostitutes who
are like at the like guild level.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
Right.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
Like they're masters of their craft.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
Okay, they went to you, know they went to the
academy, so they have a PhD.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
Yes, as opposed to just some like, as opposed to
someone who like dabbles Put outa shingle.
Yeah, they're not doodlers,they're artists.
And there's one episode wherewe meet a former classmate of
Inara's who is now running abrothel on an outer planet, and
the girls in her employ are nottrained companions.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
I see they are prostitutes.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
Okay, and so there's this, like there's this tension
that I don't even quite knowwhat to do with, where I think
that, like I actually thinkWhedon thought he was being
feminist, right explicitly so,and I'm not sure that he
actually was he gave us somekick-ass female characters,
(32:26):
which is on the way to feminism,but it's not all the way there.
And I think, and like it's true, that the sex workers that we
meet, even the prostitutes whoare not trained companions,
don't have pimps, they have fullagency, they choose their
clients, like the things thatyou know kind of give dignity to
(32:51):
sex work and make it work andnot servitude.
And there's this still, likethis, push me, pull me.
Like in that episode I justnamed, where there's the brothel
, like there's a scene that'svery disturbing with one of the
women who has betrayed hersisters from the brothel for
(33:12):
money.
And the man, the leader of thebad guys, is like now you're
going to show everyone a woman'splace and he makes her kneel
and go down on him Like on abalcony, yeah, yeah.
And like we're supposed toreact that way, but also we see
it happen.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
Like we don't see the whole blowjob, but we know
what's happening.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
And so like there's that sort of like, I don't know,
it leaves me feeling icky inways that I'm not sure I saw 20
years ago.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
So I think there's also part of the kind of tension
that I'm feeling is that Ithink this show, this franchise,
is sex positive, but I'm notsure it's as sex worker positive
(34:08):
or as woman positive as Whedonthought that it was, or as I
thought that it was 20 years agowhen I was watching it.
All right, let me talk aboutthe storytelling piece now.
So there's a scene in the pilotwhere Simon, the doctor, who's
a fugitive kind of confronts Mal.
This is near the end and islike why are you even letting us
(34:30):
stay?
And they go back and forth inthis sort of clipped pithy back
and forth and it ends with Malsort of saying like it's enough,
like I'm still flying, it'senough, and like there's no real
answer that Simon could give.
Or let me restate that I thinkthe writer in me says that's a
(34:53):
complete thought.
But the human being who actuallyhas conversations with other
human beings is like theconversation isn't actually over
, right.
So, like this time watching it,I'm like what does Simon do now
?
And he just, like the camera,watches Nathan Fillion look off
it, you know out the window ofthe spaceship because he's
flying, he's, you know, at thehelm and sort of like this cute
(35:18):
little smile and in thebackground Simon just walks away
.
So it's like the song fades outon Simon and, as a writer,
chef's kiss.
It's beautiful dialogue and aslike a viewer, I'm like I think
someone would have saidsomething else.
(35:40):
You know, and there are othermoments sort of like that or not
precisely, but sort of where,again, whedon is a writer first
and uses this weird flowerylanguage which is kind of fun,
like it's a cowboy show and he'sgot them like riding horses and
oxen and stuff, and so likethey use weird kind of
(36:04):
old-fashioned sort of whichfeels really cunning hat, cool,
yeah, or like.
There's one point where Kayleesays I ain't had nothing between
my nethers that ain't run onbatteries in over a year and
like, and Mal says I don't needto hear more about that and Jane
says I'd like to, but the useof the phrase nethers like, and
(36:27):
there are other moments likethat where they say I suppose
and like, like, just sort oflike folksy and old fashioned,
and also they speak Mandarin andlike I loved it and like I
loved it.
I don't know that it's actuallylike.
Just based on the way thatlanguage we've seen language in
the past 20 years, it doesn'tfeel true and like it's Cowboys
(36:51):
in Space Trace, like why are youlooking for true but also
science fiction?
Like he's taking it seriously.
He actually is trying to askthe questions like what, if?
What would it look like?
I think the language of Fireflyand Serenity, as much as I love
it, is not what it would looklike.
So that's like a tension thatI'm seeing now that I did not
(37:16):
see at all 20 years ago.
I just ate it up.
I just ate it up.
I loved it.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
You know I'm thinking about the.
What you're talking about,about the writing, where it's
like chef's kiss.
But it doesn't really work inthis medium, exactly because
that's not how human beings haveconversations.
Similar to how, like, nobodyever says goodbye on telephones
in movies, and once you see ityou can't unsee it.
(37:43):
But at the same time it's justlike.
There are things that I justexcuse.
So, for instance, enormousapartments in New York City, in
sitcoms, because logisticallythat's all that's going to work,
not saying goodbye when youhang up the phone, those sorts
of things or like peoplespeaking English in the ancient
Near East.
Yes, those sorts of things right, or like people speaking
(38:04):
english in ancient, in theancient near east, yes, but what
it sounds like you'repinpointing here is like an
incomplete job of the writer, solike or like he's refraining
from killing his darlings.
Speaker 1 (38:22):
Yes, it is that.
And the incomplete yes, boththe incomplete job and the
refraining from killing darlings.
Yes, yes, and the darlings aredarling and I loved them the
first time I watched it.
But the incomplete shows up inthe fact that they all speak at
least some Mandarin and thereare no people of Asian descent
Right Like that's where the sortof incompleteness is.
(38:44):
It may be the case I did not dolike a very careful line by line
analysis, friends but it may bethe case that Alliance folk
speak with more sort of standardgrammar and lexicon than the
folks like Kaylee and Mal whoare meant to have been from
outer worlds.
That may be the case, I don'tknow.
(39:05):
But even sort of the idea thatthere's something poetic about
the idea that the language andthe dialect would have reverted
to I don't know Appalachia inthese worlds that look like
Appalachia, I don't think it'sactually.
It's a darling, I guess, ormaybe it's a shorthand, maybe
(39:26):
I'm not being fair.
Speaker 2 (39:28):
Now, to be fair, to Whedon the Appalachian dialect.
As I understand it, linguistsbelieve it is the closest to the
English dialect from thesettlers who came to America.
Speaker 1 (39:39):
Yeah, I've heard that too.
I've heard that too.
Speaker 2 (39:42):
So things do linger Linger for a long time.
Speaker 1 (39:46):
Yeah, I'm not sure that that kind of linguistic
history is what he had in mind,though, because he also shoved
the Mandarin in.
Speaker 2 (39:56):
Yeah, and it's lingered the way that it has,
because, because, the cultureare so isolated, yes, and people
stayed.
They didn't go to far-flungcults, they weren't you know,
settlers on far, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
So yeah.
So the last thing I want toname, which I didn't say in my
you know initial but I just wantto like lift it up here name,
which I didn't say in my youknow initial but I just want to
like lift it up here in terms ofstorytelling and killing
darlings.
He literally kills twocharacters in like major
characters, like it, if the, ifwe, if serenity is fan fiction
(40:32):
of firefly, like mind, the tags,friends, major character death
and it's both like shocking andalso I have to you know,
grudging respect, like that'swhat the story needed, that's
what the, that's what the storydemanded.
Shepherd book would not havesurvived the attack of the you
(40:55):
know there's in the movie.
The alliance has said in a sentan assassin.
It's the movie is like kind ofafter the show but also kind of
rewrites a little bit.
There's some continuity issuesthat, if you really care like
the Firefly, serenity fans like,go check it out on the wiki.
I'm not deep enough in the weedsto get into that, but the
(41:17):
Alliance has sent an assassin toget River and through the
course of running from him wediscover actually that the
Alliance created the Reaversaccidentally.
The assassin destroys all ofthe safe houses where Serenity
would go, including now.
Shepard Book is off the shipand was running his own little
(41:38):
settlement called Haven, and theAlliance destroys all of it,
kills them all, and Shepard Bookwouldn't have survived.
I think, if that is thestoryline that we were writing,
that is what would have happenedNow.
Wash dies right before theclimax of the film, which I
don't think was required by thestory, but it did feel useful
(42:01):
insofar as, like we're on theedge of our seats, as the
viewers, like our guys are inperil, like our beloved heroes
are in peril, having one of themactually die lets us know this
is real.
This shit is real and we're notpulling punches and it's a
(42:22):
universally beloved charactertoo.
Speaker 2 (42:25):
Like I think if Jane had died it would have been like
, well yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:30):
No, I think you're right, Because Jane is a dick
Like.
He says misogynist things, hesays terrible things that, to be
fair to the show, thecharacters call him on Like when
he says awful shit.
people call him on it and likeconfront him and at one point,
because he does something awfullike Mal, almost puts him out
(42:50):
the airlock.
But Wash, everybody loved, likehe just was like this goofy.
He's a very skilled pilot butjust this like goofy guy who
like adores his wife and likesthe job you know.
So, yeah, I think you're.
I think you're right thatkilling wash in particular not
(43:11):
jane, I think kaylee would havehad a similar effect yeah,
really raised the stakes for thefans.
I will say that's specificallythe Firefly fans.
I actually encountered thisfranchise the wrong way around.
I was not a Firefly fan.
I was at our dad's friend'shouse, alan's house, and it was
(43:32):
new, and I watched it with theirfamily.
Speaker 2 (43:36):
The Serenity, serenity.
Speaker 1 (43:38):
And I had never seen Firefly and I didn't know what
was going on and I was like whatis she wearing?
Why is she wearing that inspace?
About an aura?
Speaker 2 (43:45):
because I didn't, I did not understand like why
would you?
Speaker 1 (43:47):
wear that on a spaceship.
So I wasn't quite as moved bywash's death the first time
around because I didn't havethat background.
So if you took serenity as astandalone which I think you can
, actually it's it a good film.
But for those who were comingin which is the reason it was
made having him die in thatmoment really raised the stakes
in a way, so that we understoodthat we're taking this story to
(44:11):
its logical conclusions,whatever they might be.
Whedon is a good storyteller.
He's a really good storyteller.
Like, I'm not making a judgmenton his character, but I think
the fact that Wash and StepperBook die in the movie is
actually evidence of his goodstorytelling.
Speaker 2 (44:31):
Yeah, we're running a little short on time.
You have not yet gotten to theno aliens.
Oh, thank you.
Speaker 1 (44:36):
Yes, so one of the things that like I think is is
really interesting about thisand that the movie like really
tied up neatly is the fact that,like Earth dried, like we used
it up and we went out there, and, unlike Star Trek, where they
use like new alien cultures asthe kind of episodic plots plot,
(45:06):
there are no aliens.
It's not a shortcut.
He refused to take thatshortcut.
There's a shortcut to say like,well, what if there's an alien
race?
And they do, blah, blah, blah.
You know, and there areinteresting questions to ask and
answer with that kind ofshortcut.
We didn't, didn't do that and Ithink there's something again
like really, really interestingand like speaks to his power as
a storyteller and tim manier too, who who helped write it, that
(45:29):
they sort of said like okay,well, what does it look like?
What does space travel looklike?
What happens to human culture?
Just human culture.
We don't need intervention ofoutsiders outside of the human
race in order to like have thedrama and the conflict and the
war and the mistreatment.
(45:50):
We don't need Martians to makethat happen.
Like let's take this reallyseriously in humanity, and I
remember dad really appreciatingthat in humanity and I remember
dad really appreciating that.
Speaker 2 (46:01):
Yeah, you know this reminds me of the way that
you're putting this I talked, Idon't remember, but at some
point about.
There was this historicalfantasy that I read, where it
was what if there were zombiesin Victorian England?
But what had happened was therewas actual magic and there was
in the midst of a war the Frenchsent tainted face powder, I
(46:24):
remember you telling me aboutthat.
So yeah, so it went to like thevery rich women and because of
that, like an entire ecosystemgrew up around.
Like protecting these women, solike there was a company that
would send them like brainslices so that they could eat.
And you know, it was okay to bea zombie.
(46:44):
But at the same time there weremen who you know, used this as
an opportunity to get rid of awife.
Well, she's dead, so I canremarry, and so this wife is
without.
So, like it thought through thelogical consequences.
Monsters and Manners, I think,is the name of the book, but it
thought through the logicalconsequences of like, well, what
if this happened in somethingwhere we know how the society is
(47:05):
?
And so it feels like what wouldour society be like in space?
Speaker 1 (47:09):
Right, and like really thought through the
logical consequences of that andhis answer is like, just like
here, with power hoarding andwealth hoarding and you know,
and like ridiculous bureaucracy.
Speaker 2 (47:24):
Yeah, and the willingness to destroy anything,
to gain more power, to createweapons, to exploit talents and
the how the Reavers were createdwas a like, really really like
affected me, Like that'ssomething that has stuck with me
(47:44):
.
Speaker 1 (47:45):
They pumped some sort of drug into the air in the
terraformed planet that wassupposed to like calm people.
It was like Xanax, it wassupposed to just calm people
down.
And most of the population justlaid down and died, but like
one.
Yeah one percent, one tenth ofone percent.
It had the opposite effect andthey got extremely aggressive
and they became Reavers.
Speaker 2 (48:03):
Yeah, yeah, and like that stuck with me in part
because I'm like, oh yeah, thatseems like something.
Speaker 1 (48:09):
Totally.
Speaker 2 (48:10):
Totally something we would do.
Totally something, we would doit also.
It contextualize the Reavers,because they're a tragedy.
Speaker 1 (48:17):
Yeah, although it's interesting, we don't really
have time for it.
No-transcript, which I supposeis a trauma response, but that
(48:44):
was like a different explanationfrom the show than what we had
with this sort of drug in theair.
I think that we can reconcilethe two, but I actually think
the solution in the movie was alater decision on whedon's part.
It worked, it worked, but oh,yeah, yeah all right, let me see
(49:10):
if I can remember the thingsthat we talked about.
There was a lot.
Oh yeah.
Yeah, it's sex positive, butit's not always sex worker
positive.
We've got kick-ass femalecharacters, but they don't
always pass Bechdel.
And we've got these kick-assfemale characters who still end
(49:30):
up in these ridiculousmiscommunication oh, will he or
won't he?
She's beautiful because shedoesn't know she's beautiful.
Kind of ridiculousness.
Beautiful because she doesn'tknow she's beautiful.
Kind of ridiculousness.
That deeply like, that, justlike resonated at the same
frequency as my mental furniture.
At the time I talked about therelationships that we do see.
(49:52):
Wash and zoe is really lovelyand that was really nice.
But then there's this, thepining that we have with anara
and Mal and Simon and Kaylee.
There's also all of the womenwe meet off the ship.
Most of them are prostitutes orcompanions, if they have any
kind of real speaking role,which I'm not sure what that
(50:16):
means in Whedon's imagination ofwhat the world is or what the
future is there are other jobsout there.
Speaker 2 (50:24):
Yeah, yeah, and there were other jobs out there in
the Old West too.
Speaker 1 (50:28):
And we even name that when Saffron, before we know
she's actually a trainedcompanion in this mal-explaining
feminism to Saffron momentshe's like there's work to be had
.
You can work in a factory oryou can work in a field, or,
like we hear it from thecharacter's mouths, it was
cowboys in space, which isreally fun, and part of the way
(50:50):
that that like gets conveyed isthe Appalachian type, folksy,
kind of archaic lexicon thatthey use, which is really
delightful.
And then when I start toscratch the surface, I'm like,
hmm, I'm not so sure, and younamed it, that was maybe like we
(51:10):
didn't not, we didn't meanyou're not killing their
darlings or not being willing tokill their darlings, they were
willing to kill their characters.
And also and you named this, Ithink you're right is that not
sort of fully thinking it out?
Like not comprehensively?
So they thought about thelanguage, the fact that we would
all speak at least someMandarin Chinese, but they
didn't put any people of Asiandescent on the ship or really
(51:32):
any of the like characters, likemaybe an extra.
So that feels a littleinconsistent there.
I talked about Whedon as sort ofin the meta, like Neil Gaiman,
kind of being very smart andvery isolated but also a keen
observer of human behavior andthinking like no one else in the
(51:55):
world is another player.
They're all non-playercharacters.
Oh, I also talked about Mal,our hero, who's both a hero and
an anti-hero because he doesthings that are pretty
reprehensible, but he also hasthis integrity protects his crew
like crazy and like he's sortof the trope of like the tough
(52:16):
guy with the heart of gold.
I know I'm forgetting things.
What did I forget?
Speaker 2 (52:21):
We ended talking about the like how much Dad
appreciated the fact that therewere no aliens and that that was
.
It was clearly Whedon justthinking through.
Like what are the naturalconclusions?
Like?
If we put humanity in space,what would happen?
Speaker 1 (52:37):
Yes, thank you, and the answer is that it recreates
and reifies a lot of the thingsthat are wrong about human
culture on Earth.
Speaker 2 (52:46):
Yeah, because wherever you go, there you are
yeah.
Speaker 1 (52:48):
Yeah, thank you.
Well, I have to say like I'mrearranging my mental furniture
a little bit in this rewatch,but I still really like the
furniture it still really tiesthe room together.
I still really enjoyed it, likeeven these 20 years later.
So, for whatever that's worth,what are we talking about next
(53:09):
weekend?
Speaker 2 (53:10):
So next week I'm bringing you my deep thoughts
about poltergeist.
Oh shit, that scared the poopout of me Me too, I'm trying to
exercise a childhood demon Right, right.
Speaker 1 (53:21):
Well, nice pun, nice pun, all right.
Well until then.
Speaker 2 (53:26):
Until then.
Speaker 1 (53:28):
This show is a labor of love, but that doesn't make
it free to produce.
If you enjoy it even half asmuch as we do, please consider
helping to keep us overthinking.
You can support us at ourPatreon there's a link in the
show notes or leave a positivereview so others can find us and
, of course, share the show withyour people.
Thanks for listening.
(53:51):
Our theme music is ProfessorUmlaut by Kevin MacLeod from
incompetechcom.
Find full music credits in theshow notes.
Speaker 2 (54:00):
Thank you to Resonate Recordings for editing today's
episode.
Speaker 1 (54:03):
Until next time, remember pop culture is still
culture, and shouldn't you knowwhat's in your head?
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