The winter television hiatus in the United States makes for an excellent opportunity to watch old favourites — thanks to the short days and bitter nights, the prospect of curling up on the couch with a cat and flicking the laptop on is even more appealing than usual. This year, I’ve been working my way through a few, but over the weekend, I picked up Firefly and the subsequent feature film, Serenity. Joss Whedon’s short-lived show consisted of just 14 episodes, three of which never even aired, and it essentially bombed on the air — but loyal Whedon fans resurrected it in the form of Serenity and every now and then, rumours swirl that perhaps Mal and the crew will be returning. (Sorry, fans: That ship has sailed.)
It might seem odd to be discussing a show that hasn’t aired in over a decade, but Firefly is important for several reasons. The show still has a very loyal following, Whedon’s reputation is much more mainstream than ever before, and his fanbase has expanded considerably as a result, and the show represents a critical point in Whedon’s career.
Cast as a new take on the space opera, Firefly revolves around a scrappy band of bandits with hearts of gold who travel the universe in search of salvage material and find themselves in ridiculous scrapes as their ethics win out over money. They’re survivors of the wrong side of an epic battle that decided the fate of the universe, with the Alliance prevailing in a series of vicious, terrible battles against the independents — otherwise known as the Browncoats.
It’s been a long time since I watched Firefly, and I definitely watched and loved the show before I was aware of many social issues. (A reminder that people are not magically born knowing everything, and that there’s always more to learn.) Upon rewatch, I was struck by all the problems with the show that many others have discussed, and how Firefly seemed to be almost a turning point for Whedon, as he apparently felt that he could do no wrong with socially dubious content with such a huge following and such a vocal contingent arguing that he was a god of social justice.
There are a number of aspects of Firefly that leave room for hesitation, but the two most obvious issues are both central elements: The use of Chinese on the show and the treatment of Inara (Morena Baccarin), the ‘Registered Companion’ who flies with the ship.
Under the mythos of Firefly, China played a heavy role in the creation of the Alliance and in the subsequent enforcement of same. Yet, curiously, there are almost no Chinese people or people of obvious Chinese descent on the show — an especially large surprise on Alliance cruisers and other ships intended to enforce galactic law. Since wars usually leave those in power with cushy positions, and reward people on the winning side with powerful positions alongside their fellow winners, it’s strange to see a sea of white faces among the ranks of officers and other officials. Why, in a world where China was a major prevailing power, aren’t there any Chinese characters? Why is no one on the crew of the Firefly Chinese, given that surely some Chinese people resisted the Alliance?
The show adopts Chinoiserie freely for set decorations; there are random spurts of calligraphy, coolie hats, paper umbrellas, and other things viewers might vaguely associate with ‘Asia.’ Furthermore, sprinklings of Chinese are integrated into the speech of the characters, especially for curse words. Borrowed phrases aren’t at all uncommon, but what is uncommon is that, as many Chinese speakers have pointed out, the phrases used in Firefly are badly pronounced and/or make no sense. Thrown in for colour, they don’t represent anything real. It seems unlikely that rebels would be using the language of the winners, but if we assume, charitably, that Chinese had infiltrated the language before the war (in which case, one would assume that the Chinese population would be much higher, in which case, where are the Chinese people?), it seems odd that people wouldn’t have learned to pronounce it right. If Californians can say tortilla, the crew of the Firefly should know how to say bao.
In essence, the show used Ching-Chong to add colour, in an act of considerable disrespect to the Chinese community and to Chinese culture.
The handling of Inara was equally disrespectful, this time to sex workers. As a ‘Registered Companion,’ she represents the ‘good’ sex worker; she’s had extensive training, she gets to pick her clients, she’s a high class, law-abiding kind of girl (inasmuch as you can abide by the law when you fly with Malcolm Reynolds). In many ways, she reminds me of decriminalisation/legalisation efforts under the Swedish/Nordic model and other approaches that have been condemned by actual sex workers in the real world for potentially endangering sex workers, continuing to marginalise them, and not providing sex workers with autonomy and freedom.
As a sanctioned and government-approved sex worker, Inara represents a certain ideal, in contrast with the ‘whores’ in the unaired ‘Heart of Gold,’ an episode where Mal and the crew swing in to rescue a group of women at the far end of the universe. The episode makes for a classic Western, but one with a bitter taste; the women in the ‘bordello’ are not Registered Companions, they are not sanctioned sex workers, and, ultimately, they are punished for it. The contrast and the message are clear: Submit to a male-dominated system that establishes ground rules for sex work and live, or strike out independently on your own and die.
As with every Whedon show, Firefly attracted a following of intensely loyal fans. However, their numbers were too small to prop it up. Despite creative campaigns and pleas to the network, Fox dropped it, and Universal Studios produced Serenity only under considerable pressure — but the film tanked at the box office.
The series and film represent an interesting turning point in Whedon’s career. With both Buffy and Angel, he produced programmes with the same snappy dialogue and interesting character studies that viewers saw on Firefly — the kind of creative genius that made fans flock to the auteur in the first place. However, both shows had something that Firefly didn’t: Female-focused arcs with empowered characters who weren’t there on tolerance. The women on Firefly enacted ancient stereotyped roles even as they might have appeared independent: Kaylee was a mechanic, but Mal frequently put her down and other members of the crew jibed at her; River was ‘ruined’ by the deeds of the Alliance and made into a fragile manic pixie dream girl; and Inara was subject to the rules of good/bad sex workers even if her governing agency was presented as an organisation run by women.
Yet, many Whedon fans seemed willing to ignore or excuse this shift. Subtle as it may have been, it was a departure from his prior work, and it marked an important turning point for his later productions and characters, where women became increasingly cardboard and troubling while men became increasingly central to the narrative. Fan pushback to fan criticism also mounted; even as Whedon was proclaiming himself a feminist and winning popular accolades, and even as his fans were supporting that identity, they were responding to critics of his work in a decidedly antifeminist way.
With Firefly, Whedon’s career took an expected turn, and a sad one. Like all auteurs, he wasn’t perfect, and like all male auteurs, his relationship to women was sometimes troubled, but he at least seemed to think critically about the depiction of women in film and television. The same can’t be said now — is it because he’s been in the industry too long? Because he’s experienced too much pressure to change his female characters and conform? Because money has won out over values? It’s unclear — but there’s a reason I stopped watching Whedon about halfway through the first season of Dollhouse, and rewatching Firefly has helped me pin down the moment where Whedon began shifting into someone I don’t recognise.