I suppose here's as good as anyplace to discuss it...

I'm reading Finding Serenity which is a collection of essays about Firefly. It's funny how these essayists impart every episode with their own worldview and talk like the writers intentionally wrote the episode to further (or not) feminism / insert-your-agenda-here.

It seems to me that the writer's first goal is to tell a good story within the parameters that Joss defined. If any subtext can be gleaned from the episode, then that it's purely accidental or at most the subconcious manifestation of our culture's values.

I find it hard to believe there were discussions during the shooting of the series that began, "You know, I think Jayne is manifesting too much oedipal complex which will lessen Inara's goddess-through-divine-copulation matriarchal role on an already phallic Serenity."

IJS.

I think that's Firefly thread. But to bite, the thing is that each writer brings their personal experiences to the table. The overall thing may be, "I want to write a show about freedom."

And so, Joss drank the red koolaid, and Tim is pretty hardcore in his conservatism and those ideologies influence their story-telling in various ways. Zoe may exist due to Joss' feminist mom's influence on his life, the general feeling in Out of Gas might have a bit to do with Tim's feelings about Israel, alone in the desert. So, no, the subtext is intentional. It's part of good storytelling.

I hope you have won, ita.

I'm not so sure. Given the aggression with which I just fell asleep. And how foggy I feel on waking. God, this is stupid.

So, no, the subtext is intentional. It's part of good storytelling.

But all of it isn't, surely? I figure there's what you put in on purpose, there's what you can't help letting in, and then there's what I take out of it that may never have been placed there.

It's part of good storytelling.

Yes, because part of all stories is why they are being told. The writer may know thir theme and they may not, but there is a reason a word in each line of dialogue is chosen instead of another word, why one image is chosen instead of another, and those choices add up.

I started this here, because this didn't have so much to do with Firefly per se, but essays in general.

I suppose I can understand and agree with Joss and Tim bringing their ideologies to the table (and hiring like-minded writers to do the same). However, some of these essays are contradictory. In one, Zoe is hyperfeminised, the other, she's defined by her relationship to Wash. Both essays attribute these views to the writers.

There's a point in here somewhere. Oh yes: I think my issue is with the agenda these essayists seem to think Joss and Co. have. As if Joss sat down one day to write an episode, saying, "THIS will finally convert the masses to my way of thinking."

As if Joss sat down one day to write an episode, saying, "THIS will finally convert the masses to my way of thinking."

Judging from a quote on women's rights in Firefly, he might very well have -- not necessarily any given episode, but his thesis as a whole. And he wouldn't be the first, nor the most egregious.

Okay, off to pretend to teach krav.

Okay, off to pretend to teach krav.

Good huntingteaching.

But all of it isn't, surely? I figure there's what you put in on purpose, there's what you can't help letting in, and then there's what I take out of it that may never have been placed there.

Verily, ita. Because *I* the audience, bring my own shit to the table as well, and read into it my own personal experiences, biases, blah blah thinkingcakes.

Both essays attribute these views to the writers.

In this case, the writers are alive and chatty. It's easy enough to ask them.

Joss may have seen Zoe as iconic, Tim may have seen her as closer to the Earth, but if I had to venture a guess, it'd be that both of them just thought she was really fucking hot.

just thought she was really fucking hot

Well, yeah. But of course the fact that a strong--physically strong--tough-minded, soldierly woman is what the writers define as hot is part of the message. They could have cast someone who looked like, um, Miss Hathaway and given an entirely different message.

They could have cast someone who looked like, um, Miss Hathaway and given an entirely different message.

Now I wanna see Miss Hathaway with Zoe's sawed-off shotgun.