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allwithagrainofsalt · 4 months

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So I'm watching Princess Weekes' video about confederate vampires (watch it fr) and I wanna expand upon smth they mention about the explicitly White American Confederate storytelling in,

Drumroll please...

Firefly.

Now first: I LOVE Firefly. It's an incredible show and in fact I think it's a beautiful and inspirational piece of political art in many ways, and I'm gonna talk about that part a little bit at the end. But mainly, why did I hear the comparison and immediately start to have 50 puzzle pieces click? Well. This essay got long, and to be honest idk how much I might be repeating others cuz PW mentioned it due to others talking about it too, but I just kinda took a journey of my own off-the-dome observations based on things I've already read about/know. I hope it's an interesting journey for you too.

TW below the Readmore: discussion of colonial / military violence; discussion of Sexual Assault

We are looking at a world of cowboys in the stars, in which there was a recent Civil War. In fact, we're set in a "real life future," where the majority remaining galactic race stems from the great American Empire. We do get influences of Chinese culture with language and clothing, but remember that Spaghetti Westerns of the 1960s - which themselves romanticized the values of independent, libertarian southerners (who massacred Indians and no-good loiterers - we'll talk about that later) - heavily utilized "Oriental" aesthetics and caricatures while dehumanizing the Asian people they were ostensibly in relationship with. After all, Asian Americans were a growing population in the landscape of the Western frontier, often working alongside your storybook railroad workers, gold seekers and, even further east than Pacific coastal industries, working & living alongside cowboys. However, the language of Western-genre films (because of the way it mirrors the language of Confederates) does not respect Asian culture as it is, but rather as a collection of "wisdoms" and aesthetics to pick apart and use the "good parts" of - for use by white people in their white expansion. This idea fits a bit uncomfortably well with Firefly's multiple white characters who are "orientalized" by the camera. Kaylee, Inara, and the Tam siblings fulfill various stereotypes and tropes of Chinese- and other Asian-American diaspora people groups. The show, in this way, offers the "diverse" presence of a Chinese influence... using actors of Italian, Irish, German, and possibly Latine background to fill the roles. This makes the Firefly universe look less of a pacifist future between Western and Asian cultures, and more like a colonized universe where the (white) Western colonialists maintain some practices of those forward-thinking Asians who came before them.

But! You may say! Firefly isn't quite so white as that. What about the POC in the show!? Beyond its treatment of the de/re-Orientalization of a decidedly American/Western future, what about Firefly's real interracial representation, like Zoe Washburne and Shepherd Book? I would argue the inclusion of these unapologetic and kind black activist ideas is part of what begins to bring this show towards something more agreeable, but I also think they are at risk of becoming a bit of an obfuscation of a deeper anti-black racist remnant that remains entrenched in the show's Confederate story influences...

We need to talk about Reavers.

Joss Whedon admitted that Reavers were influenced by the role Native Americans played in traditional Westerns. "Every story needs a monster," he said in an interview. "In the stories of the old west it was the Apaches." It's pretty clear how the Reavers, who rape, murder, skin and cannibalize those of the "civilized world" are constructed from the specific racism against Black and Indigenous groups in America. Depictions of cannibals and savages in media have always been constructed to dehumanize those on the outskirts - whether it's the Apache threat Whedon mentions from the Wild West, or indigenous tribes of Africa or South America in any media, or the "terrifying" blackfaced "black" characters in Birth of a Nation, the horror trope of "uncivilized bands of roving lunatics who self-mutilate and can't communicate with their words" is pretty inseparable from its own racist origins. For centuries Europeans have been making "demons" out of pagans and indigenous people for their battle tactics or necropolitics, while simultaneously working hard to entrench our own atrocities in "necessities of the time." For one example, think of the fear associated with "headhunter" displays versus the still-controversial but more civilized-presenting "harsh peacekeeping" of public hangings. What is the difference between these practices besides a different eagernesses to contextualize the practice? I don't argue in favor of punitive violence for cultural purposes here, but it's important not to lose the contextualization of these tropes' origins in the social messaging of popular media. And in fact, the Reavers show an interesting way that the criminalization of Black and Indigenous Americans ties closely to the way we talk about the incarcerated and the mentally ill. I'm frankly not much more satisfied by the Reavers being an embodiment of "space madness" than I would be if they were straight up just Native Americans, or runaways from enslavement. American culture is great at coming up with "madnesses" which are really just the pushback to dehumanizing and unjust regimes. I'm not saying that the logic of the show would allow Reavers to receive constructive community-based mental health support involving free medicine and good therapy. But in a show that claims to be in favor of the marginalized and their voice for power, it's weird that this doesn't come up, right? Do the monsters in our media need to be irredeemable to work as narrative tropes? I would argue, once again, the inclusion of this Western and frankly genocidal trope (and if you think the Reavers are NOT a genocidal story trope, let me know what paths the narrative offers as a solution besides killing them immediately and indiscriminately when given the chance.) works to build a world-feel that's less "for the people" and more "for the justified, downtrodden warriors who know right from wrong," which is a very confederate line of thought.

Although Firefly highlights some literal black voices in their main cast, the plotline of the show is much the same as a confederate apologist story. Some people are more worthy of life than others in this tale - others who are too animistic and uncivilized; or who are simply left behind by the inevitable march of the white, righteous underdog ideologies. And these bold, brave rebels from the Civil War which recently happened are still around, just waiting to reassert their power and their independent desires from the empire. The Confederacy of the US was a white, ethno-nationalist and fascist state, admittedly so by their own politicians. It provided ideological groundwork for Nazi Germany and preceded much of the pseudoscience of phrenology. The Confederate position was based on white supremacy nearly entirely, and argued for the most racist version of a "globalist" idea possible. As evidence, here's some of the Cornerstone Address presented by Alexander Stephens, the "vice president" of the Confederacy: "Many governments have been founded upon the principle of subordination and serfdom of certain classes of the same race; such were and are in violation of the laws of nature. Our system commits no such violation of nature's laws. With us, all of the white race, however high or low, rich or poor, are equal in the eye of the law. Not so with the negro. Subordination is his place. He, by nature, or by the curse against Canaan, is fitted for that condition which he occupies in our system." But confederate stories and ideas have maintained a long-standing and unyielding influence, as after they lost the Civil War, the ideology of the Confederacy underwent a serious PR rebranding. Rather than "anti-American" racists, they became the noble fighters of a lost cause. They became the "defenders of heritage," and they became the mythologized ancestor of any white people who wanted to claim them. The Civil War "rebels" were painted as noble Southern men and women who, in a political landscape of the South becoming red states and the bible belt, were mythologized as Southern Belles and nobly humble plantation owners who loved Good Black people... just not the "mentally ill" ones who did things like run away or fight bondage.

(By the way, Alexander Stephens had some things to say about mental illness too (same link again)- I'm tying this back to my point about "mentally ill Reavers" being less of a far-cry than you might think from Confederate thinking: "Our new government [the Confederacy] is founded upon [this] idea; its corner-stone rests upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition. ... Many who hear me, perhaps, can recollect well that this truth was not generally admitted, even within their day. ... Those at the North, who still cling to these errors [of racial equality], with a zeal above knowledge, we justly denominate [call them] fanatics. All fanaticism springs from an aberration of the mind from a defect in reasoning. It is a species of insanity. One of the most striking characteristics of insanity, in many instances, is forming correct conclusions from fancied or erroneous premises; so with the antislavery fanatics. Their conclusions are right if their premises were. They assume that the negro is equal, and hence conclude that he is entitled to equal privileges and rights with the white man. ... [I] told [a gentleman from one of the northern states in the House of Representatives] that it was he, and those acting with him, who were warring against a principle. They were attempting to make things equal which the Creator had made unequal." It's worth wondering what makes us, as viewers, accept that Reavers are inherently incurable of the mental illness which makes them monsters. Of course this trope could be used in a critical way - but we can see the real-language example here which should make us question what kind of reading to take from media which only addresses the single solution of wiping a True Evil demographic from existence.)

So I hope you see the influences now, how Firefly follows Confederate and White Supremacist storylines. It's of course worth talking about though, the ways it can be read as a radical story as well. The cast includes an empowered revolutionary black woman, a black spiritual elder who advocates for pacifism in resistence, a sex worker who consistently values and stands up for herself and her line of work explicitly, a working woman who struggles with misogyny, and a rich man disgracing himself from society to save his mentally ill younger sister who was facing violent abuse at the hands of the state. These are people who orient themselves for one reason or another in at least some form of opposition to the oppressive and violent power of the government, which once again, is an analogous state to the United States. Of course, the difficulty of the anti-governmental Confederate narrative is that anti-governmental sentiment can have incredibly valid origins. If you are facing discrimination you should indeed oppose the oppressive force that monitors and abuses all its citizens in one way or another. But for God's sake, that opposition should come from a perspective of eliminating discrimination for all. Not a perspective like Jayne Cobb's - the explicitly violent and self-serving voice which, through the show and movie, metaphorically pulls our disaffected protagonist, Malcolm Reynolds, toward the direction of his more cynical, militaristic and even fascist internalized values. Firefly wants to simultaneously make a diverse revolutionary text, but also misses the opportunities it presents itself to say something more meaningful through its own medium. We could've addressed the harm of Jayne's willingness to grant "humanity" ONLY to the people he deems as something like family - or who he feels have properly convinced him that they're worth saving. He is the perfect embodiment of the right-wing, misogynist, white-supremacist ideology at the center of Confederate thinking. He's a Nazi who has been pulled into collaborating with real marginalized people through his relationship with Mal. And there's some level of that which could be an interesting story about deradicalization. In fact in some ways I believe the show could be open to some kind of that interpretation, given the almost-betrayal that Jayne goes back against due to his dedication to Mal. But unfortunatly I'd also say that in the execution of the show I got a different perception, which is back to the whole Confederate thesis...

Instead of a fascist who we could watch be deradicalized by his fellow crew, Jayne ends up doing marginal good only ever out of respect for Mal. I would argue in this way, their relationship mirrors the romanticized mythology of the Civil War being a "war between brothers" due to split households in border states. This narrative clearly holds more respect for the Confederacy than continuing to rightfully call the ideology the abhorrent thing that it is, and it is clear that the same ideology rears its head deep into our legal systems through the treatment of oppressed groups to this day. In ways, the influence of pro-Confederate radicals AFTER the war worked to legitimize bigotry of all kinds in a truly unprecedented way in America. If we have to respect the opinions of the Confederates because they were our "brothers" and not our ideological enemies, then who will we feel more and more comfortable throwing by the wayside - them or the people we work together to shamefully dehumanize? Through this contextual lens, with a vision of Mal as a "decent cowboy" compared to Jayne's more blatantly intolerant cowboy persona, it seems glaring that Jayne's bigoted views are just more intense outward versions of similar prejudices to those Mal feels, but by comparing the two characters to one another Mal would of course begin to look more forgivable despite his relative centrism and lack of care for the marginalized beyond his immediate group. Neither Mal nor anyone, for the narrative's sake, ever really, constructively pulls Jayne aside to actually lay down meaningful expectations of respect. And our rebel storylines of outgroup justice in the future should not accept this lack of accountability! By doing so, we leave no room for the revolutionary need for the Paradox of Tolerance...

The one thing we must not tolerate is intolerance.

Oh and P.S., one last thing: Upon an internet search about the paradox of tolerance I learned that Bill Maher has a famous quote about it, and idk the specifics but seeing that dang centrist asshole liberal made me want to clarify that the argument itself could tie very well into stuff like Islamophobic talking points, since the US defends a lot of its military landgrabs as "defending liberal ideals" due to conflating all Muslims with extremist groups. So I just felt the need to add that being "intolerant of intolerance" is NOT equivalent to dehumanizing groups based on stereotypes of them being "more prone to violence" or other dogwhistles like that. I would imagine that comes through, but it's also just worth making explicit. Even me, in this essay, seeing a character who falls into many of the plot points of a Confederate heroism storyline and is a white man - I'm not intolerant OF those things. In the episodes where Mal successfully subverts those ideologies he's mirroring on screen, by interacting with the world differently because he has learned to humanize an increasingly large group of people, I cheer for him! However, I remain intolerant of the intolerance Mal continues to show by virtue of his failure to hold others and himself accountable to the paradox of tolerance, and lets abuse goes unchecked for longer than he, as a man with power and a growing communal mindset, COULD put to rest.

#media analysis #firefly #white supremacy #orientalism #historical #history lesson #critical theory #philosophy #revolutionary #racism #leftism

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