This is an interesting aspect of Joss' writing which has been on my mind:
Well, not only is Serenity about something, it's also extremely well written. Joss Whedon has invented a kind of weird future slang that is still perfectly intelligible but is different, with snatches of foreign languages and obsolete English words that make it clear that it's not ordinary English they're speaking.
The effect of this -- at least in Whedon's deft hands -- is to allow himself something of the kind of heroic language that was possible for Shakespeare -- and for Tolkien. It allows him to be eloquent.
And then he turns around and deliberately clanks with some humorously abrupt language that makes us laugh for the sheer startlement of it. Just as Shakespeare did, when he'd drop from blank verse to the funny coarseness of comic prose.
This is one reason why Joss' writing appeals so much to me. He's very sensitive and attentive to language in a way that few TV or Film writers are (maybe Sorkin and Palladino). He's very conscious about creating a particularly rich metaphoric bed for his work, whether it's based in an entirely made up SoCal teenspeak, or a far future amalgam of 19th century tropes / tech speak /Chinese.
It's a taste thing, though. My sister likes Buffy well enough, but can't watch it because of the way they speak. I can't see her ever getting to like Firefly, since it's much more alien.
He's very sensitive and attentive to language in a way that few TV or Film writers are (maybe Sorkin and Palladino).
David Milch (and the other Deadwood writers) has this going on in spades. As do most of the Wire writers. And that's why I can't bring myself to budget out the HBO.
Speaking of Deadwood on-topically--the scientist woman in the signal video thingy was the evil tutor on last season's Deadwood. Creepy!
And then I realize that to society, I am always going to look bad, or at best weird, and if they weren't mocking me because of my Jossness, they'd be mocking my terrible taste in shoes.
Yes. This. So very, very true.
David Milch (and the other Deadwood writers) has this going on in spades.
Is he also responsible for the early NYPD Blue? That had a pretty distinctive speech pattern, too -- it feels Shakespearean to me sometimes.
It's a taste thing, though. My sister likes Buffy well enough, but can't watch it because of the way they speak. I can't see her ever getting to like Firefly, since it's much more alien.
I know it can be a barrier to entry, but my experience with literary canon suggests that works which are linguistically distinct -consciously/artfully so - are more likely to endure. The reason being (generally) that works which only paddle along in the given language of their time get swept away when that time has passed. They owe too much to the cultural biases of that time. Whereas works which have a hard core of non-derivative language endure the erosion of the commonplaces of an era.
David, you've managed to both eloquently and precisely, articulate exactly why I'm a Whedon fan.
At the end of the day, it isn't about the situations (okay, except of course for that unwholesome thing for vampires I'm pretty sure I was infected with by Frank Langela back in the day) that keep me interested. I can find heros and antiheroes thick on the ground. (Ivanhoe? I'm lookin' at you)
But it IS the metaphoric world illustrated by a lyric and language that is of, and not of my time. That is what transports me. The definition of 'escapism'. I could live in those worlds. (Sometimes I'd prefer to, truth be told. I only wish people in my world spoke nobly.)
t's a taste thing, though. My sister likes Buffy well enough, but can't watch it because of the way they speak. I can't see her ever getting to like Firefly, since it's much more alien.
I know it can be a barrier to entry, but my experience with literary canon suggests that works which are linguistically distinct -consciously/artfully so - are more likely to endure.
He did it with Fray, too, though much less (in a proportionate sense) than with the Buffyverse or Firefly. It's a fine line to walk, actually, in making a story set in a different setting use a language that's slightly altered. You need to not lose the viewer/reader with unfamiliar language, while still providing enough to give a sense that, yes, this IS a different world, whether it's set in the future or it's contemporary but in a very different setting. Farscape did that pretty well, I think.
And actually, IIRC, Mad Max (the Thunderdome one) did pretty well at that, too.
