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Firefly Again
Akima:
--- Quote from: Is it cold in here? on 07 Feb 2013, 16:31 ---Akima, as I acknowledge that Firefly violated its core premise by not having Chinese-descended cast members, are you willing to give it credit for snappy dialog and interesting ideas ("Jaynestown", for example, on the social value of untrue symbolism)?
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Certainly I can, and in fact have. Does the often-high quality of the writing and acting in Firefly make up for the deep structural flaws in its world-building (which includes the questionable casting decisions), or the production team's general attitudes to Chinese people, language, and culture as represented in the end product? For me the answer, obviously, is no. D.W.Griffith's "Birth Of A Nation" is universally acclaimed as a ground-breaking piece of cinema, and its creator is regarded as a brilliant pioneer of film-making. Does that make up for the film's frightful racism? For me, once again, the answer is no.
Part of the reason I'm hostile to Firefly, is precisely because Joss Whedon is not a hack like Sax Rohmer. I find it very hard to understand how a work like Firefly could come from a man who could say this:
"Equality is not a concept. It's not something we should be striving for. It's a necessity. Equality is like gravity. We need it to stand on this earth as men and women, and the misogyny that is in every culture is not a true part of the human condition. It is life out of balance, and that imbalance is sucking something out of the soul of every man and woman who's confronted with it. We need equality. Kinda now."
ackblom12:
I think Joss Whedon is kind of a victim of his own fanbase at times. The man has made some problematic stuff (as practically every content creator has), Firefly's racial issues and Dollhouse in general, and his fanbase defends his virtue with religious zeal. It compounds a lot of the irritation with the issues that do arise.
Valdís:
--- Quote from: ackblom12 on 07 Feb 2013, 16:15 ---2. The Battlestar Galactica reboot is basically about how Fascism is a pretty useful form of government.
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Well yeah, there's a reason most democracies include unique precepts for how they work when at total war. It just isn't very nice to continue to have it when not at war (outside the military). If you're one medium-sized town away from the extinction of your species it might be time to get pragmatic. :wink:
--- Quote from: Akima on 07 Feb 2013, 15:01 ---There is problematic, and then there is directly insulting to your people, language, and culture. I have written about this at length elsewhere, so I should probably shut up now.
--- Quote ---Yes, I am prejudiced by Firefly's neo-colonialist (to put it generously) that "stuff" from China, Japan etc. is cool (though not so much that they get it right of course)
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Now I haven't even seen Firefly yet (heck, I just got done with BSG last year and Gaius Baltar is mai husbando), but here's to hoping you're consistent in such objections for all cultures, since lots of people aren't. Such as when they cast a black guy as Heimdall, the Whitest of the Gods. If it wasn't for the fact that it's a comic-book movie, and thus expected to screw up everything anyway, that would've been mighty silly. On the other hand the people complaining about non-Nordic people seen in Valhalla are morons, since entry to it is not predicated on race or prostrating yourself to 'the Gods', but rather being useful to Odin in Ragnarök.
Or, say, casting a biopic of Carl Mannerheim, the Marshal of Finland and father of the nation, with Kenyans in an attempt to stir up controversy. It's the media. Depictions of people/cultures/history can be.. sub-par, to say the least.
I'm going to have to Inigo Montoya your use of "Neo-Colonialism", though, since the definition I'm reading doesn't seem to apply? I doubt Joss Whedon is exerting a lot of external control over the sovereignty of undeveloped nations. Not just "depicts aspects of my culture in ways I don't like". Join the club. :lol:
Is it cold in here?:
It's colonialism to steal a country's natural resources or its artwork, and arguably at least analogous to colonialism to uproot pieces of culture that die without context.
TRVA123:
--- Quote from: ackblom12 on 07 Feb 2013, 17:46 ---I think Joss Whedon is kind of a victim of his own fanbase at times. The man has made some problematic stuff (as practically every content creator has), Firefly's racial issues and Dollhouse in general, and his fanbase defends his virtue with religious zeal. It compounds a lot of the irritation with the issues that do arise.
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dollhouse is the only Whedon series that I seriously love. I love it because of how problematic it is. That is the point of that particular show. I don't understand the people who say that Dollhouse condones objectification or slavery or rape. I feel as though the show clearly depicts that these are not positive things. Its subtle, but the condemnation is there.
(ackbloom, i'm not saying that you, specifically, say these things about dollhouse. But whenever someone talks about how problematic dollhouse is those are the issues that they usually bring up.)
The whedon show that makes me facepalm the most is Buffy. Xanders misogynistic character, the way that EVERY black character dies (oh, wait, no, one lives), the treatment of people of color in general on that show, and the way that Willow essentially raping Tara is completely overlooked. I like certain episodes, even certain season arcs, but there are so many times when I just want to reach through the screen and slap the writers.
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