| [Ben]: | Someone doesn't like Firefly ... and it doesn't bother me at all. | Discuss This [1 comment so far] View Comments | Source
This Socialist has some amusing ideas on the series. Basically, Daraka carries the American Civil War comparison to an extreme, going so far as to label the crew of Serenity "ex-Nazis". So firmly does he hold his belief that the war in the Firefly universe is a direct reference to the American Civil War that any difference becomes - to him - revisionism. As viewers, we don't know much about life before the Alliance fought to bring the rim worlds under their control, but I've never seen anything mentioning slavery or other such barbaric practices. Rather, it struck me as a clear-cut case of worlds that wished to govern themselves. But this doesn't lend credibility to their cause for Mr. Larimore-Hall. Oh no - because these "rebels" weren't slave-owning southerners, Firefly becomes a revisionist retelling of the plight of the southern slave. Indeed, he thinks that the fact that 2 of the 9 crew members of Serenity are black is another example of how Joss Whedon has gotten his story oh so wrong.
Even more amusing, Daraka condemns the use of cliche characters in Firefly while praising Star Trek. Howzat?
All in all, I'm glad Daraka Larimore-Hall doesn't like Firefly. If he's irritated by the "annoying hyper individualism" that he sees in the show, then let him go watch his formulaic and agonizingly cliche Star Trek. Let him be overjoyed as each episode the Federation triumphs again and again over the untermensch foreigners. Let him be facinated by the Deus Ex Machina that saves the day, every day.
In my mind, Firefly exists in its own universe. Firefly's use of similar situations as historic ones are not to retell the historic stories, but to build a believable and familiar framework on which to tell a new story. The concept of frontier life is one that Americans enjoy, and we love to support underdogs. Similarly, Star Trek's unbelievable situations, xenophobic plotlines and miracles performed by crewmembers on every show are allowable because of the distinct universe they were created in.
Full text of his blog entry inside. |
| 2005-08-24
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Someone doesn't like Firefly ... and it doesn't bother me at all. |
