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Originally posted by shamus:
Man, I hope not! If we thought The Great Lesbian "Cliche" generated a lot of negative attention, think what that would do. *shudder*

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Originally posted by Pandora:
The Great Lesbian "Cliche"?

Before I launch into a rather long and possibly unnecessary neo-feminist rambling, maybe you could explain?

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Originally posted by shamus:

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Originally posted by Pandora:
The Great Lesbian "Cliche"?

Before I launch into a rather long and possibly unnecessary neo-feminist rambling, maybe you could explain?

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Many have accused Joss/ME of "punishing" the lesbian relationship by killing Tara. This is talked about as there being a cliche that lesbian relationships bring doom and gloom. ME has defended themselves as treating the couple like any other couple, without regard to orientation.

I agree with the defense, natch.

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Originally posted by shamus:
Many have accused Joss/ME of "punishing" the lesbian relationship by killing Tara. This is talked about as there being a cliche that lesbian relationships bring doom and gloom. ME has defended themselves as treating the couple like any other couple, without regard to orientation.

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Originally posted by Hjermsted:
For decades Hollywood stereotyped Native Americans as ruthless savages. In the past twenty years or so the industry has wisely moved away from the stereotype because A)Reasonable people of all persuasions saw through it and took offense to it and B)history simply didn't support it in the broad sense (violent tribes were the minority of the 500 nations).

In Firefly it seems there will be a group (The Reavers) that on the surface appear to be ruthless savages (though I remind you: nothing is ever surface-level in Whedon Country). I doubt there will be any "indian cliche" controversy unless the show literally states that these Reavers are indeed descended from Earth's indigenous cultures (and they would have to be from Earth originally because there are no aliens in this show). I seriously doubt that this will be the case.

The Reavers are probably more like violent pirates who have mutated (socially, intellectually as well as physically). I guarantee they'll be given depth and that one or two of the Reavers will explore the gray area between good and evil.

As for the gay/lesbian, black/white thing... I see the characters in the Buffyverse as individuals, not members of this social demographic or that. It's okay to point out a show's tendencies but drawing conclusions of racism or homophobia is a bit knee-jerk (emphasis on the "jerk").

As far as I can tell, Buffy had the truest portrayal of a lesbian relationship that we're likely to see on TV in a long time and last season women outnumbered the men 2 to 1 in most episodes. Plenty of white men have died on the two Buffyverse shows (two high school principals, a mayor, a mayor's assistant, Warren, Rack, Adam, Holtz, John Ritter... how big do you want this list to get?) but no one is decrying the "Joss hates Whitey" nature of that.

And rightly so. This show isn't about the isms or the tidy little categories that we put people into. Sometimes all that identity stuff can be quite limiting, actually.

Having said all that, I DO find it odd that these characters went to California public school all those years (and then on to a college in the same state) without making more black, latino or asian friends. The oversight, however, is institutional in nature (most WB shows seem to have this problem). Central casting definitely has a glitch somewhere.

mattro

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Originally posted by tlsmith1963:
I'm only just starting to watch Buffy (Season 1 on DVD), but I had heard already that Willow is a lesbian. It seems like they were dropping clues right from the beginning because in an early episode Xander says that Willow always gives him good advice on how to treat a woman. He also says that she is like a guy, which is stereotypical, but there you go!

Tammy

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Originally posted by nine:

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Originally posted by Hjermsted:
unless the show literally states that these Reavers are indeed descended from Earth's indigenous cultures (and they would have to be from Earth originally because there are no aliens in this show).

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Has it been said that these are humans and that they're from earth?
I know Joss was anti-bumpy-forehead, for cliche worth and a potential world take-over by the prosthetics industry.

But just coz all the actors remain unchanged, they might still be aliens, like everyone in space talking Americanised-English!

Besides which, if they were from a non-earth planet, that wouldnt make them aliens coz its only from their POV. Aliens would be anyone from another planet.

I also like the fact that my 'interstellar spaniards' theory has gained some more impetus. It was the only logical explanation for the horses to appear in Planet of the Apeas, and here they are again!

___________
"His thoughts were red thoughts, and his teeth were white."

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This one's for Furyfire...

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Originally posted by Novagrass:
Joss has explained that these are humans, that Earth has been abandoned/destroyed, and that they have spread out to many different planets. These planets are ruled over by two central planets (these planets would equate to Washington DC, I'd imagine).

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Originally posted by Novagrass:
People will shout "racism!" but really, that's not what this is at all. The "savage marauder" is a key figure in western stories. You can't tell a long running western story without running into some sort of Native American figure sooner or later. It's just good that Joss has recognized this cliche early so that he can tackle it and turn it upside down, as he tends to do.

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Originally posted by Haken:

The point is, the Reavers can't be completely mindless savages. Nothing can be that and expect to survive for long. Otherwise, they'll just dwindle and die off after a generation or less.

Unless, of course, some "civilized" group of people come along and slaughter them all first. Oh, that's right, that's not what this is about.

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Originally posted by Haken:

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Originally posted by Novagrass:
While not racism, I do have a slight problem with the idea of the Reavers. I know this is scifi and understands that the level of realism is skewed. However, when Joss uses Hill Street Blue as a point of comparison for Firefly, I have to ask myself whether his "mindless savages" characterization of the Reavers is just a bit too one dimensional and too cliched.

Even savages have culture, no matter how minute, for the purpose of self preservation--a core survival instinct. The Reavers may be vastly different from what we would consider civilized, but at the end of the day, when they're done raping some poor woman and bagging her kids for dinner, they have to go home to somewhere to be with someone and do familial things; perhaps even kick that newly won dicapitated head of the father around with the little Reaver kids.

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From what I can tell reading spoilers and interviews, Reavers don't have, as you say, "a core survival instict". Instead they are extremely suicidal and insane, having lost all humanity to the emptiness of space. They can't be compared to native people because they are not from one culture or race, but are a mob of crazy spacemen. I'm not sure the Reavers have any desire to do familial things at all.

Of course, I could be wrong, we'll have to wait and see.

Scroll.

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Originally posted by Haken:
While not racism, I do have a slight problem with the idea of the Reavers. I know this is scifi and understands that the level of realism is skewed. However, when Joss uses Hill Street Blue as a point of comparison for Firefly, I have to ask myself whether his "mindless savages" characterization of the Reavers is just a bit too one dimensional and too cliched.

Even savages have culture, no matter how minute, for the purpose of self preservation--a core survival instinct. The Reavers may be vastly different from what we would consider civilized, but at the end of the day, when they're done raping some poor woman and bagging her kids for dinner, they have to go home to somewhere to be with someone and do familial things; perhaps even kick that newly won dicapitated head of the father around with the little Reaver kids.

The point is, the Reavers can't be completely mindless savages. Nothing can be that and expect to survive for long. Otherwise, they'll just dwindle and die off after a generation or less.

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On the other side he has mindless savages called Reavers, which are a lot less complicated. You see them and you run. They're not monsters. What they are, are people who went out into space, saw the extraordinary nothingness and went completely out of their heads. They've become cannibalistic marauding savages. They're kind of like the Comanche in the old movies except without playing it as a racial thing at all, or even a cultural thing. It's a very personal thing. These are men who just gave up on the concept of humanity and are the scariest, worst, most awful serial-killing pirates who ever sailed around in burnt out ships in space. Everybody is terrified of them — Yeah, they're really fun [ laughs ].

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Originally posted by Zicsoft:

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Originally posted by Haken:
While not racism, I do have a slight problem with the idea of the Reavers.

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You have a good point. But remember, this is Joss Whedon we're talking about. One of the big reasons Buffy works is the complexity of its bad guys.
I have to say something about the portrayal of Indians in westerns. It's perfectly true that Hollywood has a terrible record when it comes to its portrayal of non-whites. But the fact is, I just don't see the "mindless savage" stereotype in all the westerns that are supposed to contain them.

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Originally posted by TinyTimm:

As for Hollyweirds portrayal of "non-whites" look at the current portrayal of Business men and "the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy."

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Jeff
Who doesn't believe any good can come from stereotyping anyone.

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Originally posted by TinyTimm:

If the Reavers combine the worse characteristics of some "Native American" groups and my ancestors the "Vikings" (no squarehead jokes please) with heavy radiation thrown in as a sop to old SF flicks, you have a bunch of humans who are dead, know it and want to spread much pain and suffering to others before they go. Good villians, they won't be around long enough to develop a culture.

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Originally posted by Zicsoft:
(Scary thought. Is anybody here besides Jeff and me old enough to remember 5-1/4" floppies?)

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Since JW is bent on doing "hard" SF,

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Originally posted by Shuggie:
Zic,

I wasn't implying that you were lying or delusional. I had no intention of being impolite - if I came over that way then I apologize.

I admit I was sceptical that doing 'hard SF' would be a priority for Joss - it doesn't seem to fit with his prior work. But that quote is very plain so I was wrong about that.

Shug

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Originally posted by Zicsoft:

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Originally posted by TinyTimm:

As for Hollyweirds portrayal of "non-whites" look at the current portrayal of Business men and "the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy."

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Hey, I always thought that was spot-on! But then I'm a fuzzy-headed liberal. (Well almost, I don't drive a Volvo.) So I guess I'm just obeying my own stereotype!

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Originally posted by Zicsoft:
[Hey, remember the computer piracy issue of Byte? The cover was a Viking ship with a 5-1/4" floppy instead of a sail. (Scary thought. Is anybody here besides Jeff and me old enough to remember 5-1/4" floppies?)

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Radiation is an interesting issue. Since JW is bent on doing "hard" SF, I might have expected him to leave out the traditional mutant monsters. It's bad science -- mutation means minor changes, not instant transformation into an X-Man.

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Originally posted by Zicsoft:
Is anybody here besides Jeff and me old enough to remember 5-1/4" floppies?)

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