Serial: I'm not nearly as unhappy about the whole thing as Nutty, mainly because I don't think the problem is really sexist blinkers at ME so much as thoughtlessness. My take is that they picked a bunch of genres--western, regency for Shindig, and ... other stuff i'm forgetting--where tropes depend on gender inequality, tried to set them in a world of gender equality, and didn't think about the problems they'd have.

But all the explanations people have been offering about how Companions might actually work require really elaborate explanations that may not be directly contradicted by the text, but that are not supported by more than minimal and contradictory textual clues, either.

Nutty, do you think it makes a difference that on Firefly, the writing staff is overwhelmingly male? Also, where does Zoe fall into the gender stereotyping dynamic?

I don't know. One assumes, given Buffy, that these people know how to write women who are not sniveling weaklings. Buffy never really had to deal with the day-to-day beatdowns of life, so we have no M.E. data on that front. I will say, as I mentioned previously, the M.E. team has said rather impolitic things on this board, in the past, relating to sex and gender.

Would female writers help? I don't know! Hire me and we can find out!

Who knows. Certainly, there are women who don't agree with me politically, like Camille Paglia and foolish people like that. But I'd like to think that there are people, both male and female, who are sensitive to, you know, the patterns of gendered behavior. I don't go jump up and down every time Zoe makes bao for her husband; and I was willing to give Saffron a pass on that whole "I'm married off to a random stranger" bit, as a comedy of misunderstandings (or not, as it turned out); but on a hot-button issue like misogyny or sexual exploitation, I have a hawk's eye.

By elevating the Companion™ Brand, they created an organized self-contained policing system, and provided the customers with a sense of trust in that brand.

That explains why a bunch of prostitutes would combine to form a guild, but not why that guild would have great reknown and awe follow it. I do not stand in awe of the executives of the company that manufactures my toothpaste; and if I didn't use toothpaste myself, how much less would I accord respect to those executives?

But all the explanations people have been offering about how Companions might actually work require really elaborate explanations that may not be directly contradicted by the text, but that are not supported by more than minimal and contradictory textual clues, either

What Micole said. We shouldn't have to wank this hard.

We shouldn't have to wank this hard.

We should have had more than 13 episodes too. IJS.

We shouldn't have to wank this hard.

MUST tag. Please?

Oh, do, Fay. Multitudinous are the puns on the word "wank".

And thirteen episodes don't offer enough opportunity for writers to establish that one of the premises of the series makes sense?

It wasn't enough opportunity to establish why the Blue Hand Men are doing the mental modifications on their students. Or to establish the politics surrounding Unification by force. Or even to establish what the deal is with Blue Sun.

Considering the end of HoG, I'm wanking that the next season would have done some serious explaination of these things as well as the role of Companions in the core. For my part though, Companions and all that is shown of them /does/ make sense to me because I have seen it in history books since the 6th grade. Perhaps I just had an unusual education (come to think of it, I know that I did) but I've never had to wank anything concerning Companions and The Guild except to explain it to people who couldn't understand the idea of educated, artistic, cultured, politically connected people who include sex as a part of their list of talents for hire.

YMMV.

Griffyn, I'm sure you're not trying to patronize the rest of us. But you're hardly the only member of this board who's been reading history books since the 6th grade.

But I'm with Nutty and Micole on this issue: I don't think there's enough support for the more generous interpretation yet. It's simple thoughtlessness, I think.

So, yes, my mileage does vary. I'm still on board with the show, but I'm concerned about the depth of thought that went into the Companion concept and gender issues in general (extra-textual commentary aside).

Not trying to be patronizing, or sugget that others havn't been reading history books before the 6th grade. I meant in that to say the history books (and classes) that I got in the 6th grade included Geisha, Courtesans, Noble Mistresses and the like as part of the political science studies. Something that I have found in my adult years was not introduced in most school systems until much later if at all. I apologize if it came off as being in any way offensive.

As for the rest, I see nothing to either support or contradict the matter of Companions and/or gender role conflicts as being well or poorly thought out. Just saying that the first 13 episodes of a TV show is hardly enough of a sample to make any sort of claim one way or the other. Give me a full 26 episode season of Firefly (Please?) and there might be enough information to support an argument.

I'm with Griffyn. I mean, sure, I've extrapolated stuff -- but I don't feel that I'm having to fanwank the Companion idea. What has been presented on screen seems reasonable enough to me -- not a full picture, any more than Book's personal history or the nature of his Order have been explained in detail, or indeed Blue Sun or the scary Blue Hand men. It's only a partial picture, but I really haven't found it jarring or incredible.

I agree that it's not been realized as well as one might hope, and that things like Male Companions remain hypothetical (since we've only seen 1 1/2 actual Companions on the show), but I am totally not having the problem with the basic concept that it seems some people here are. There are enough sincere remarks along the lines of "What, the difference is just they make tea?" to suggest that many/most people here are having serious difficulties seeing sex workers as having any social niches other than those of 20th Century America.

I'm not saying that everyone who objects to the portrayal of the Companions is objecting because they can't wrap their heads around the idea of a group of sex workers having high social status and/or a quasi religious role, but my impression is that some people are balking at that concept, regardless of how well or badly ME have portrayed it.

I may have misunderstood.