Evil Firefly Haters by Succatash

GENERAL DISCUSSIONS

Evil Firefly Haters

POSTED BY: SUCCATASH
UPDATED: Tuesday, October 17, 2006 21:06
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VIEWED: 43308
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Wednesday, October 1, 2003 7:40 AM

As long as we're considering supernatural influence on the Sept. 11th attacks, it seems there's far more evidence to indicate Allah was the actual culprit. Just a thought.

SergeantX

"..and here's to all the dreamers, may our open hearts find rest." -- Nanci Griffith

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Wednesday, October 1, 2003 7:45 AM

CAPTBAGGYTROUSERS

Really? I thought it was a bunch of psychotic religious fundamentalists eager to meet the guy. Who knew?

History repeats the old conceits

http://topshelftvshow.com
Updated! Improved! Shiny!

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Wednesday, October 1, 2003 7:51 AM

SERGEANTX

Or maybe it was Loki. Psychotic religious extremists though? I dunno, that's just too obvious. There's got to be some higher explanation.

SergeantX

"..and here's to all the dreamers, may our open hearts find rest." -- Nanci Griffith

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Wednesday, October 1, 2003 7:55 AM

KAYTHRYN

Leprechauns. Sneaky, blood thirsty, bastards.

-------------------------------------
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
Aristotle

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Wednesday, October 1, 2003 7:57 AM

STILLSHINY

Quote:
Originally posted by SergeantX:
As long as we're considering supernatural influence on the Sept. 11th attacks, it seems there's far more evidence to indicate Allah was the actual culprit. Just a thought.

SergeantX

"..and here's to all the dreamers, may our open hearts find rest." -- Nanci Griffith

very well said,

though there are many, many godless and inhuman acts carried out in the name of "god"s" that have no basis in their teachings only the overzealous passions of extremists.

but sadly there are such violent hate-filled teachings as well.

I know it's a drift from this thread in a thread, but it actually brings us back to the SCi-Fi of Firefly.I wonder if we will learn more of the "Philosophy" of Reavers.

MAL
Reavers might take issue with that philosophy. If they had a philosophy.

Mal: “See how I'm not punching him? I think I've grown!”

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Wednesday, October 1, 2003 9:16 AM

SUCCATASH

Hey, check this out - I received an email from Mr. Zaza himself.

"Succatash,

First off, I want to thank you for complimenting my writing so generously. It took a lot of class to do that and I'm not sure I would have been as cool about it - especially if someone had used their writing skills to revile something I care about as much as you care about Firefly. Rereading my article, I do think it was somewhat over the top. I especially regret getting personal in my attacks on Joss Whedon, who I'm sure is a very nice guy. That was uncalled for and out of line.

Thank you as well for inviting me to post comments on your website. Rather than address each post individually however, I think I'll collect the major points made by your readers (and in emails to my editor), and answer them in an article on ratsalad.com - which you can link to, or post or your site. My reasons for wanting to handle it this way are as follows:

I don't think I'm going to sway any Firefly fans to my views - I think we can all agree on that, so a debate would probably just be a recapping of what's already been said.

Also, while I'm sure that you - and the majority of your readers - would be willing to engage in a friendly, open debate, I don't see much value in conducting an on-line pissing match with the people who resorted to ad hominem attacks or personal insults.

Having said all that, it would be remarkably lame of me to write something so inflammatory without answering in some way the concerns of the people I offended - and I think the best way would be a follow-up article with point-by-point answers on ratsalad.com. I can foresee one objection by Firefly fans to this idea - it tends to give me the last word. But look at it this way: in the grand scheme of things, Joss Whedon has the last word - he's the one making millions of dollars doing a job he loves with the added benefit of an international forum for his ideas. Anyway, with the follow-up article I intend to be as clear as possible about my views without resorting to insulting language and hyperbole. I can't promise the new article will be entirely conciliatory - sarcasm and invective are my stock in trade and my writing suffers when I try to be nice. (It should also be noted that Ratsalad is primarily meant to purvey humor.) I'll have to strike a balance there.

-Willie Zaza

P.S. I, or my editor, will give you a heads up when the article is posted. And by the way, yes, that's my real name. I mention it only because a number of people posting expressed disbelief at this. It's Albanian, or to be more precise, Albanese, that is it's a name common amongst the Albanian diaspora population in southern Italy."

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Wednesday, October 1, 2003 9:19 AM

SARAHETC

Quote:
Originally posted by Kaythryn:
Leprechauns. Sneaky, blood thirsty, bastards.

Bringing it all back home: Carl, from The Simpsons, teaches us that while leprechauns can cure curses, Jesus is better. He's like six leprechauns, but much harder to catch.

I'm a dying breed who still believes, haunted by American dreams. ---Neko Case

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Wednesday, October 1, 2003 9:26 AM

STILLSHINY

That I will be most curious to see.

Mal: “See how I'm not punching him? I think I've grown!”

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Wednesday, October 1, 2003 9:27 AM

SUCCATASH

I just noticed this from Zaza's letter:

"Thank you as well for inviting me to post comments on your website."

Hehe, does he think I'm Haken?

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Wednesday, October 1, 2003 11:47 PM

DRAKON

I would disagree with Sarge's comment, as to Allah's involvment in 9-11. Or any major deity. I would think that a major deity would simply smite the Americans instead of asking folks to go to America (on a hospitable visa program) learn to fly planes (that they can't learn in their home countries) hijack planes (they can't build themselves) into buildings (they also can't build)

If Allah was behind it, he sure seems pretty cheesed at his own followers. All that did was open up a can of woop ass on his own folks. Since then "Allah" has lost Afghanistan and Iraq, and looks on the verge of losing Iran, Syria and perhaps even Saudi Arabia. Would any major deity with the slightest common sense or fore knowledge wreck his own religion in such a fashion?

And I have been told that Shiatan sometimes changes his appearance.

"Wash, where is my damn spaceship?"

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Wednesday, December 24, 2003 5:16 PM

I know nobody is reading this thread anymore - or would care about this if they did - but the ratsalad response to Firefly fans is finally up, only two months after it was promised. It can be found under "Firefly Redux" at www.ratsalad.com.

Willie Zaza

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Wednesday, December 24, 2003 5:50 PM

TEELABROWN

Gorram computer.

............................................................................................
"Freedom is the Freedom to say that 2+2 makes 4. If that is granted, all else follws"-Winston, 1984
Keep flyin', and remember, THEY can't take the sky from US!

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Wednesday, December 24, 2003 5:50 PM

TEELABROWN

Man, I would be killing my computer right now, that's so evil. Blasphemy for the eyes, ears, whatever! Man, if I had control over their little lives, they would be in so much pain they would die...

. The ching wah tsao duh liou mahngs. Curse them, or those who made it. May they die like the rats they are!

We can keep flyin', even with that.

............................................................................................
"Freedom is the Freedom to say that 2+2 makes 4. If that is granted, all else follws"-Winston, 1984
Keep flyin', and remember, THEY can't take the sky from US!

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Wednesday, December 24, 2003 10:21 PM

SAINTPROVERBIUS

Well, Willy, there's one important thing you seem to be missing. The war with the Alliance isn't entirely like the Civil War at all. It's more like a colonist revolutionary war, one where the colonists manage to actually lose.

You have the Alliance which terraforms and seeds planets with settlers, then later forces them to "unify" under the banner of that Alliance. This is imperialistic expansion, no matter how you slice it. You have the planets fighting against this, not because they really want to form their own nation, but because each one of them wants their own localized sovereignty. After all, the forces against the Alliance were called "Independents", not "Confeds".

I think the reason most of us, including myself at first, walk away from this thinking the war mirrors the Civil War is because that's a motiff of the Western genre. After all, many of the Western movies are about displaced Confeds going west looking to escape the Union, but Firefly merely borrows that theme of a war displacing people and making the losers unhappy. It doesn't borrow every aspect of the Civil War, including the idea of abolition and so forth.

In fact, much like the end of the United States Revolution, there are still slaves and indentured servants in Firefly. This was mentioned in Train Job, the first aired episode where the the companion states that Mal is bonded to her in service.

It's all cute and good that you actually did some checking up in your old high school text books about the Civil War to write that piece, but you probably should have done a little more checking to see if those arguments actually fit what we're talking about here. It doesn't, which makes a vast chunk of the rants you've written faulter much like a house of cards built on a turn table.

Now, about the rape stuff. Have you bothered to post a rant before any of the Star Trek: The Next Generations movies were made? During the first two seasons of that show, Tasha Yar mentioned being from a planet where gang rape was the principle recreational activity - and ST:TNG was aired at 5PM Eastern Time here where I'm at. So, basically, you have a situation about gang rape, which is worse than rape, on a show that's aired three hours before Firefly was. So, if you haven't done so already, I think it might be time to start protesting any future movies they might make or any DVD releases they're planning on.

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Thursday, December 25, 2003 5:45 AM

The reason I "walked away" from Firefly thinking it was supposed to invoke the memory of the Civil War is because Joss Whedon stated publicly that it was inspired by his (obviously scanty) reading about that war and the Reconstruction period that followed. He said it, I didn't. Your point about the American Revolution parallel is well taken, however the overall western motif of the show, along with Whedon's statements make it clear what period of US history he's referring to. Your statement that the various colonial planets on Firefly are more like the American colonies than the Confederacy makes sense to a point, but your suggestion that they want "localized sovreignty" sounds a lot more like the Confederacy than the 13 Colonies. The Colonies were struggling to CREATE a central government despite having little in common culturally and economically -Ben Franklin before the revolution suggested a "Grand Union" of the colonies, which failed to win enought support - while the Confederates were looking to DECREASE the power of the central government. There's your "localized sovereignty" - that's precisely what the Confederates wanted. Obviously no sci-fi show set in space, 500 years in the future is going to be an exact parallel to any period in American history and symbolism can be debated ad nauseum, but to deny what Firefly is about, while contradicting what its creator publicly said about it, is unsupportable.

As far as Star Trek having rape as a theme on one of its shows, I think I do remember that, but so what? A. Just because another show has an unpleasant subject doesn't make Whedon's treatment of the same subject OK - morality isn't graded on a curve. B. I don't believe Tasha Yar was shown to have no ill effects from having lived on a planet where gang rape was the major pastime. I believe she was shown to be scarred by the experience - which should be compared to Kaylee's reaction. I made both these points in the two Firefly articles I wrote. Please, read them more carefully before criticizing - neither of your points makes sense in the context of what I wrote OR what Joss Whedon himself has said.

And as far as my "checking my old high school textbooks" you might, if you had actually read the article thoroughly, have noticed my critique of the teaching of Civil War history in High Schools. I did in fact check some old textbooks, but they were from college, where I majored in History. Again, please read the articles before you critique them and especially before you fault my research - if re-watching old Star Trek: TNG episodes can be called "research" - Most of the research I've done in life has consisted of reading history books and articles, not watching re-runs of Star Trek, but then the standard of research among Firefly fans is made clear by the guy who can't remember the name of The Killer Angels and keeps confusing Jubal Early with George Pickett - (or was it J.E.B. Stuart? You'd have to ask him). Once again, another point made in the articles. I don't mind that you don't actually read the articles, it's that you tell me I'm wrong without understanding what I said. Either read them, understand them and then comment on them, or ignore them and keep watching Firefly, one or the other.

Willie Zaza

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Thursday, December 25, 2003 6:33 AM

SERGEANTX

WZ, let me apologize for assuming your article was a parody. Apparently I was wrong.

SergeantX

"..and here's to all the dreamers, may our open hearts find rest." -- Nanci Griffith

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Thursday, December 25, 2003 6:58 AM

KOBAYASHI

Man, talk about a looser with too much time on his hands. You can just picture this pimply-faced 40-year-old dweeb sitting in his Mom's basement typing away on his Commodore 64.

Seriously, is this guy for real? Does he really believe the idiocy that he spews? Sad, sad, little man...

This is the most obvious paragraph that points out this imbecile's lack of understanding:

Quote:
2. The Serenity looked like a diseased set of male genitals - at least in Flesh Gordon, the 70's comic soft-core version of the 30's Flash Gordonserial, they made the rocketship/phallus connection openly.

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Thursday, December 25, 2003 7:25 AM

I'd just like to point out that we ALL, that is Kobayashi, Sergeantx and myself had nothing better to do on CHRISTMAS but look at this stupid website. This tends to put your "insecure idiot" and "loser with too much time on his hands" comments somewhat in perspective for me (and perhaps for you?). YET ANOTHER POINT MADE IN THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE - I REPEAT, PLEASE READ THEM THOROUGHLY BEFORE COMMENTING, USING A DICTIONARY FOR THE HARD WORDS. On that subject, "loser" is spelled with one "O" - I should know. Hey, at least I'll cop to it - and use my real name in the bargain.

I for one am going to stay away from the internet for at least a week.

Oh, and the "space-ship as Freudian symbol of the male sex" thing is what is commonly referred to as a joke.

Willie Zaza

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Thursday, December 25, 2003 9:41 AM

FAHQ

Quote:
Originally posted by Kobayashi:
[
Quote:
2. The Serenity looked like a diseased set of male genitals - at least in Flesh Gordon, the 70's comic soft-core version of the 30's Flash Gordonserial, they made the rocketship/phallus connection openly.

I guess that means that most of the federation ships in Star Trek look like female reproductive anatomy (Ovaries, falopian (sp?) tubes and uterus. Damn- I am so tired from pigging out last night I actually thought of that one! What a stretch!

SHOOT ME NOW!

What really cracks me up is that the mindless prick actually implies that the Belch and Fart channel has quality programming.

"My days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle."

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Thursday, December 25, 2003 12:42 PM

PBGAINES

This is a nice little discussion you guys are propogating here, but I'd like to admonish y'all for sounding so contemptuous of people who forget things. I read "The Killer Angels" from cover to cover in 2 sittings while doing research for my multimedia project, and I nonetheless misnamed it in my final presentation (in spite of the fact that I based many of my arguments on the book). We forgetful geniuses struggle to keep organized/filed so that we don't forget things, but memory is too often an implied sibling of knowledge.

BTA,

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Thursday, December 25, 2003 11:25 PM

SAINTPROVERBIUS

Quote:
Originally posted by wz:
The reason I "walked away" from Firefly thinking it was supposed to invoke the memory of the Civil War is because Joss Whedon stated publicly that it was inspired by his (obviously scanty) reading about that war and the Reconstruction period that followed. He said it, I didn't. Your point about the American Revolution parallel is well taken, however the overall western motif of the show, along with Whedon's statements make it clear what period of US history he's referring to.

It's similar in that you have someone who believed heavily in the cause he was fighting for, yet his side lost and he's forced to deal with that. Focusing on things about the Civil War's events directly simply isn't applicable to this.

But really, none of that political stuff really matters, since we're talking about the story of a handful of people in a situation largely because of one guy's resentment of the Alliance. He thought he was on the right side, his side lost and he's in a place where he gets to deal with the ramifications of that loss all the time.

Saying you hate Firefly because the Southern states in the United States had slavery in the 1860s is just plain idiotic.

Yes, we all know that slavery is wrong. That's why the bad guys do it. You don't see the lead character supporting slavery, though, do you? In fact, he actually robs a person profitting from slavery in a bar and clearly states he did it because the person is profitting on slavery, then engages in a bar fight with them. So, your argument that everyone should hate Firefly because of a Western theme where the people in the actual West who were confederate soldiers might have approved of actual slavery is assanine. It's assanine because the Alliance itself supports the slavery whereas the central figure doesn't.

Quote:
Your statement that the various colonial planets on Firefly are more like the American colonies than the Confederacy makes sense to a point, but your suggestion that they want "localized sovreignty" sounds a lot more like the Confederacy than the 13 Colonies. The Colonies were struggling to CREATE a central government despite having little in common culturally and economically -Ben Franklin before the revolution suggested a "Grand Union" of the colonies, which failed to win enought support - while the Confederates were looking to DECREASE the power of the central government. There's your "localized sovereignty" - that's precisely what the Confederates wanted. Obviously no sci-fi show set in space, 500 years in the future is going to be an exact parallel to any period in American history and symbolism can be debated ad nauseum, but to deny what Firefly is about, while contradicting what its creator publicly said about it, is unsupportable.

Like I said, they were called "Independents", not "Confeds". Even the parallel with our Revolution and the formation of the Articles of Confederation doesn't really apply since there's really no indication that they wanted to toss away their autotonomy after the war in factor of a centralized government.

Quote:
I don't believe Tasha Yar was shown to have no ill effects from having lived on a planet where gang rape was the major pastime. I believe she was shown to be scarred by the experience - which should be compared to Kaylee's reaction.

You do know there's a difference between the two situations, don't you? A rather profound one. Tasha Yar spent years dealing with the threat of the rape gangs. Kaylee was merely threatenned and tied up. Tasha Yar's only sense of empowerment from the situation was nonconfrontational escape. Kaylee actually escaped her bonds and played a role in bringing Early down before he could really do anything to her. In fact, Kaylee had it a lot better than Mal, Simon, Inarra, and Book, who were actually physically beaten down by Early. In the case of Simon, he was shot.

So, you end up at the end seeing her playing jacks, being close to and bonding with the one person on the ship that helped her free herself and do her part in bringing Early down.

Furthermore, you could argue that the show sucks because Mal and Wash didn't suffer much in the way of long term effects of the torture they recieved at the hands of Niska, which lasted many hours, perhaps even days. Why weren't they emotionally crippled by this ordeal?

Book was brutally assaulted by the Alliance law officer in the two hour pilot. He was even beaten repeatedly while he was down.

Well, here's one big reason. It's a TV show, one based on action. Bad guys tend to have to do bad things to people for them to be bad guys. These bad guys tend to do bad things to the good guys, further making the case that they are bad guys and why the good guys should do something in return.

Now, if these good guys couldn't shrug off the effects of what the bad guys did to them occationally, then it wouldn't be much of a show. The first season might be okay, but after that it would become nothing but virtual support group where most of the dialogue would be about how those personal tragedies affected them with the others telling them everything would be okay followed by their telling of their tragedies. In the end, nothing would get done because the crew would be emotional cripples in space.

Now, back to Tasha Yar. Yeah, she was scarred, but she didn't constantly harp on it, did she? She made friends, played poker with the crew, and so on and so forth. She did this despite spending years under the threat of being gang raped with no safe place.

Quote:
I made both these points in the two Firefly articles I wrote. Please, read them more carefully before criticizing - neither of your points makes sense in the context of what I wrote OR what Joss Whedon himself has said.

You don't want me to criticise everything you wrote, trust me. You may have good writing style, but your arguments are absurd and reasoning is flawed.

Quote:
Again, please read the articles before you critique them and especially before you fault my research - if re-watching old Star Trek: TNG episodes can be called "research"

Pardon me for being able to remember something I watched on TV some 17 years ago.

But then again, you can't seem to even remember what you've watched a few months after you've watched it. Saying that Firefly will empower the South to rise again, allowing neo-facists to start bashing Catholics, Jews, and all manner of people is utterly idiotic considering Firefly is very multicultural in nature.

In fact, let me point out a few prime examples of flawed arguments and idiotic reasoning:

Quote:
In Joss's version, the rebels have lost their war with the evil Federation, who were attempting to unify the human-populated planets of the universe, probably so they could do something really evil, like provide universal health care or free public schools.

Of course, if you remember the show, what the Alliance actually did was terra-form new "Earths", then drop people off with the bare minimum to get a colony started. Seeds for crops, some blankets, and maybe a little more. Sometimes, the nice Alliance even gives them animals!

As for the public schooling thing, the only school that's specifically referenced would be the lovely institution that lobotomized River in order to turn her in to a psychic soldier.

Of course, the Alliance does seem to provide medicine for the mining people in Paradiso. That's nice of them. Then again, they don't bother to shut down the mines and relocate those people when it's discovered that the gases from the mines cause residents to have a horrible degenerative condition, but I guess they're still lovely and benevolent people!

Quote:
Another bizarre thing about this scene is that the character Jubal Early is played by a black actor. I find this odd not because I have something against black actors, but because the historical Jubal Early was a particularly untalented Confederate general who is most famous for burning down Chambersburg, Pennsylvania when they refused to pay a ransom to him. He also extorted $200,000 from Frederick, Maryland in return for not burning that city down. And he lost a lot of battles, too. I can only speculate that General Early must be one of those "people history stepped on." Having a black actor play "Jubal Early" is, to my mind, like hiring Judd Hirsch to play a guest role on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and calling his character Erwin Rommel or Heinz Guderian.

This even flies in the face of most of your arguments of the show. You have a bad guy in the show named after a bad guy in history, yet you contend that this is an example of how Firefly glorifies the bad guys in history? Early in the show itself wasn't made out to be a hero or even an anti-hero. He's a fully realized sado-masocistic psychopath. There's no positive hommage given to the guy by this character. It's a very negative portrait, but one based almost purely on the name rather than the actual events of history.

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Friday, December 26, 2003 5:31 AM

KELSO

I can understand why someone might not like the show (perhaps with good reason), but I don't understand the compulsion to write essays based upon television shows that one does not enjoy.

I don't like Buffy, Angel, Andromeda, Enterprise, etc. However, I don't spend ANY amount of time thinking or writing about them. To each his own, I suppose.

On the Kaylee's rape thing... I might understand the dissaproval if she was actually raped, but I hardly think that a casual threat is inappropriate.

-------
Well, here I am.

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Friday, December 26, 2003 5:31 AM

KELSO

Double Post

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Friday, December 26, 2003 6:46 AM

ZAMPANO

Quote:
Originally posted by wz:
I know nobody is reading this thread anymore - or would care about this if they did - but the ratsalad response to Firefly fans is finally up, only two months after it was promised. It can be found under "Firefly Redux" at www.ratsalad.com.

Willie Zaza

Well, I do care. Thank you for your funny article.

About the "rape scene" in "Objects in Space", you wrote:

Quote:
From WZ's original Article:
Let's take that (threatened) rape scene for example. What's so bad about this scene? Actually it's not the scene itself, but the end of the episode in which the girl involved shows absolutely no ill effects from being recently threatened with a slow torturous death involving the most degrading possible form of personal humiliation.

First, Kaylee was fortunately able to do something about this threat and remove Early from the ship. This might have helped her getting over the fear.

Second, the Fact that she dit not show any ill effects to the outside does not mean she didn't have any. They may have been buried to be shown in either further episodes or the movie which we are going to see in possibly 2005.

Quote:
From WZ's original Article:
She is in fact, happily recounting one of her sexual encounters:

KAYLEE:
And his folks come by to fetch him, and it turns out he's, like, 14 years old. (Laughs) I mean, he must've been some kind of genetic experiment, 'cause, I swear this guy was, uh...(waggles eyebrows)

How about: ...this guy was... (exceptionally big for his age)?
Why do you think she references the size of his penis? This may very well be your dirty mind at work :-)

I write all of this because I cannot understand how you can not like this show. I love it and want that everybody likes it.

I'm not american, so I cannot really say if there is a trend in the US. to glorify the civil war aera. However, I do not believe that Firefly can win some people over to "the dark side" of people who believe that the federal system must be thrown out and slavery is a good idea.

This show was clearly not a parallel to the real american civil war era, and would it have been allowed to continue a bit longer, this would have been more obvious.

Well, you can see this for yourself when the show continues 2005.

Have a happy new year.

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Friday, December 26, 2003 6:48 AM

DESANGRO

Quote:
Originally posted by stillshiny:
OK, let me start by saying, I am a born-again, more or less, conservative Christian. (If I'm breaking a rule or a taboo here, sorry) The only reason I say this is because "we" often get lumped in with folk like the "person" who posted that letter.

Now the reason this post drops right after the Fallwell comment is not intentional, but left me say, Fallwell was wrong.

I love Firefly. I love the action, I love the characters. I dig the lingo and the "Chinese swearing." One of my fav episodes is Our Mrs. Renyolds. My wife and I love that episode & all the others. No it's not a "family" show. Who ever said it was supposed to be. But it is a great show. In my opinion the best that was ever on TV. Sure, there are aspects that go beyond "family oriented", but it's not a "family show". If I have kids in my house we watch Veggie Tales, not Firefly.

I love the spiritual aspects of Firefly. They are some of the best spiritual truths presented on TV. I especially like the character Book. I appreciated the fact that he swore in "War Stories" I would have too. My Pastor says, "The most anointed men of God have feet of clay" My heart especially goes out to Mal. He is a man who has lost his faith. He is incomplete without it. A good portion of Firefly is about his redemption.

He says, "You're allowed on my boat, God ain't" Not because he doesn't believe in God, but because he feels God has let him down. A man who truly doesn't believe in God, can't feel hurt or let down by Him. You can't see this more than when you watch the 2 part pilot "Serenty" The whole split second of Mal kissing his cross, just floored me. His faith in God was strong, he wasn't kissin no good luck charm. He had faith.

There we're many Confederates that had a strong faith in God, and history reveals most of them we're of stronger spiritual character than a goodly portion of the Union. I would assume after they lost the war many of them too lost their faith in God.

And if we want to get into the idea of "idolizing criminals" By their revolt against an opressive England most of our "Founding Fathers" we're considered criminals.

What am I trying to say?

Firefly, should be kept flying because it is a "good" show. It teaches good principles, about "family, faith, honor, justice, real love, devotion, commitment & redemption" the list here could go on and on

as for our "friend the writer". get past the medium and recognize the message, or take Joss' advice and realize "It's just a TV show, morons" The choice is yours.

Keep flying!

Amen, brother StillShiny! I like the spiritual themes in Firefly as well; it's something of a relief to see a man of God (i.e. Book) who is portrayed in a fair, balanced, and sympathetic manner, not as a nutcase or a hypocrite (something that I have noticed turning up alot in science fiction, sadly.) Mal's rejection of God is another extremely interesting theme: he reminds me a lot of Jim Caviezel's recent portrayal of Edmond Dantes, AKA the Count of Monte Cristo. Edmond is bitter over what he sees as God's betrayal of him, and he's extra bitter about the fact that the God he no longer believes in won't seem to leave him alone to stew in his bitter juices. Very interesting. I commend Joss Whedon for putting these elements in his show; after all, he could have just gone the way of other secular, science fiction authors and portrayed yet another false, deranged, one-note, hypocritical 'Christian character'.

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Friday, December 26, 2003 8:36 AM

I think I understand why Firefly fans can't seem to understand what I've written. Like most Americans, you (by that I mean Firefly fans in general, or at least those who have posted in this thread) have no sense of irony, consequently, you can't tell when I'm joking and when I'm not. Example: Anytime in my articles I mentioned male genitalia - those were not a serious part of the discussion. If you read the other articles on Ratsalad you will see that they are, on the whole, meant to be funny. I'm sure you won't find them funny, but the point is that you're taking much of it entirely too seriously.

You also don't read the articles very closely. I hate to repeat myself on this point yet again, but since you keep doing it I can't help but point it out. Example: I didn't think it was inappropriate to name a character after Jubal Early because it paid homage to a Confederate General, I was simply questioning the tastefulness of having that character played by a black actor. I couldn't possibly have made this more clear in the article, and yet you totally missed the point.

Also, because you lack the sense of irony you take everything I say totally at it's face value. Example: You seem to think I believe that Firefly will single-handedly bring about a return of the Confederacy and slavery. If you re-read the articles you will see that I simply said that the show was merely one example of an unfortunate tendency in this country to value individual freedom over the well being of others - which is manifested in the glorification of sociopaths like Jesse James, who were incapable of living within a civilized society. It will help your critique of my writing if you fully understand what I said. Just a tip.

As to the "not American" (I'm guessing European? Canadian perhaps?) guy who doesn't know or care about the American habit of glorifying the Confederacy, all I can say is, that's fine for you - being "not American" you very probably will not be dragged behind a truck until you are dead because you are different in some way from the owners of said truck. Things like that hardly ever happen in Western Europe (or Canada?), a place most Gone With the Wind (and Firefly) loving Americans see as some kind of hideous, socialist nightmare because they supposedly don't have the same degree of "freedom" we do here, i.e, the freedom to be made into wage slaves by the tiny cabal of capitalists who actually run the country - and who are the spiritual descendents of the Slave Power in the antebellum South.

Willie Zaza

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Friday, December 26, 2003 9:19 AM

Dear Mr. Gaines,

I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings by being unjustly contemptuous of "people who forget things," but I would like to remind you that it was you who sent a long, rather condescending email in which you said my critique of Firefly was based on a misunderstanding of American history, but contained very little support for this accusation. Instead your email contained a lot of sophistry about the meaning of the show and mis-information about the book "The Killer Angels," which, as you said, was Joss Whedon's primary inspiration for Firefly. You claimed, in your email, to have made a "year-long" study of the subject of Firefly. I'm sorry for appearing contemptuous, but frankly I am. If there is only one book in the "canon" of Firefly which must be read in the course of "studying" the show, and you can't remember the name of it, or which characters did what in it, how can I feel otherwise when you feel perfectly free to email me and tell me I don't know what I'm talking about? I imagine anyone would be rather annoyed at that.

To be fair, I must also admit to having "forgotten something." I my re-reading of "The Killer Angels" for the Firefly Redux article, I realized that you were probably thinking of George Pickett when you described Jubal Early as being portrayed as "an idiot" in the novel and not J.E.B. Stuart as I suggested in the article (which was unfortunately posted before I could correct myself). In my own defense, I think this is a mistake of somewhat lesser degree as I cannot read your mind and know what you misremembered from "The Killer Angels." You on the other hand, could have picked up the book and read the character descriptions which appear in the prologue(!) before emailing me and telling me I don't know what I'm talking about. Also, I was simply writing a snotty article in my spare time for a humor website, not a year-long "study," which, judging by your reference to a "presentation" must have been done for work or school. The standards of documentation at your college/place of business must be remarkably low if you can submit a bibliography with a best-selling novel's name incorrectly listed - especially as it was, by your own admission, the basis of much of your argument. My contempt now encompasses whoever gave you a passing grade on your research project or whatever it was (assuming they did).

You say in your post: "memory is too often an implied sibling of knowledge." I suppose for someone who can't remember even the simplest (and yet most important) things, it's imperative to believe that. However, what use is knowledge if you can't remember it?? A collection of knowledge which your brain cannot readily access has no value. It is not knowledge, it's a disorganized filing cabinet. If you can't remember all the facts, how can you collate, organize and assess their meaning? Knowledge, plus the ability to evaluate it (including the facility of "memory" that you show so much contempt for) are both necessary to achieve wisdom, which is more important than knowledge. MY GOD, I just went on a PHILOSOPHICAL SEARCH FOR MEANING!! Maybe I'll submit a spec script to Mutant Enemy!

Willie Zaza

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Friday, December 26, 2003 9:27 AM

CARDIE

Underneath all the irony and rhetoric is a valid point to be debated. It is true that American myth-making has always privileged rugged individualism over collective altruism. In SF television it is only the Star Trek franchise that has placed its belief in a Federation, a pan-galactic government. Most other cult favorites (Blake's 7, Farscape, Firefly) feature renegades up against Big Governments, which are of course not collectively altruistic but bordering on totalitarianism.

History has certainly shown us a correlation between being an "independent" and being a sociopath or a paranoid ethnic supremacist. It has also shown us a correlation between collectivism and totalitarianism. But one can also argue that without independents, good federal systems can be coopted by special interests, just as without a truly democratic federal system, those going it alone have nowhere to turn when in crisis. As a 60s liberal, I know the root of Willie's discomfort, although that doesn't stop me from loving Firefly as a work of fiction.

Firefly is a meditation on this question, and I believe that if it had run its whole course, we might have seen the Alliance less from Mal's embittered point of view. The true evil in the show is Blue Sun, which embodies free enterprise run amok to become totalitarian transgalactic capitalism, and free enterprise is, ironically, something Mal's gang and Blue Sun have in common.

By the way, I thought that having a black man named Jubal Early was its own ironic statement, that the true history of Earth that was had become so blurred and blended that a black mother liking the name wouldn't even remember why it was inappropriate. It also nicely symbolized the whole contradictory and out-of-whack psychosis of the character himself.

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Friday, December 26, 2003 9:39 AM

Thanks for your post, Cardie. Nice to hear from someone who A. seems to understand, what I'm trying to say, and B. seems to know what they're talking about. Your's was the most well-written, bile-free and intelligent post I've seen on this thread (including my own). I especially liked your point about Jubal Early.

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Friday, December 26, 2003 10:01 AM

PBGAINES

I apologize if I appeared condescending in my letter; however you did seem to be making some inflammatory statements, and I felt that it was a good opportunity to continue a discussion.

I also thought that since I claim to have read the book, you might cut a little slack to those of us who forget relatively marginal information such as the spelling of book titles. I certainly remember a lot of other stuff about the book, but I have an unfortunate tendency of forgeting symbolically important information. I've read 700 page novels and then promptly forgotten the name of the protagonist.

By the way, my project was actually not done for school, strictly speaking. It was done for all Firefly fans. You can read about it at www.pbgaines.com/firefly/ I'm quite proud of it.

BTA,

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Friday, December 26, 2003 2:45 PM

ZAMPANO

Mr. Zaza,

thank you for you answer to my post.

Quote:
Originally posted by wz:
Also, because you lack the sense of irony you take everything I say totally at it's face value. Example: You seem to think I believe that Firefly will single-handedly bring about a return of the Confederacy and slavery. If you re-read the articles you will see that I simply said that the show was merely one example of an unfortunate tendency in this country to value individual freedom over the well being of others - which is manifested in the glorification of sociopaths like Jesse James, who were incapable of living within a civilized society. It will help your critique of my writing if you fully understand what I said. Just a tip.

Nobody implied you meant FF would "single-handedly bring about a return of the Confederacy and slavery". To be sure, I didn't. Of course not.
But I think that you completely miss that point of the show.

There definitely exists a tendency, not only in your country, but in mine as well, "to value individual freedom over the well being of others", as you say.
But FF does not advocate this, it simply shows what will become of our civilization if we move farther down this road.

Your argument remins me of some people who criticized the movie "Starship Troopers" by Paul Verhoeven and Ed Neumeier for having neo-Nazi tendencies, because they were portraing people living in a fascist society, and falling for fascist propaganda. If you haven't seen it, you should. It's great.

Quote:
As to the "not American" (I'm guessing European? Canadian perhaps?) guy who doesn't know or care about the American habit of glorifying the Confederacy, all I can say is, that's fine for you - being "not American" you very probably will not be dragged behind a truck until you are dead because you are different in some way from the owners of said truck. Things like that hardly ever happen in Western Europe (or Canada?), a place most Gone With the Wind (and Firefly) loving Americans see as some kind of hideous, socialist nightmare because they supposedly don't have the same degree of "freedom" we do here, i.e, the freedom to be made into wage slaves by the tiny cabal of capitalists who actually run the country - and who are the spiritual descendents of the Slave Power in the antebellum South.
/B]

Sir, I am from Germany. Indeed it is not custom here to drag people behind a truk until they're dead because thei're different. Does this happen often where you live (was it Virginia)?
However, we had in our very recent history a period when politicians would claim that we had no room for Asylum seekers.
I must say at this time, about ten to thirteen years ago, right-wing skinheads who responded to the mentioned politicians would throw "molotow-cocktails" into houses of families of turkish descent, or homes of asylum-seekers, burning whole families to death. And this did not happen once, but many times.
It took some little children being burned to death at night in their beds for the press and politics to realize what was happening and to create a mood that made the right-wing types the enemy, not the foreigners or asylum-seekers.

Also, they passed some legislation that does not allow Asylum seekers into this country anymore. This solved the problem (No foreigners, noone there to hate).

Right now, we are starting an "americanization" of our society, as unemployed people are required from now on to take on any job, no matter how low the wages. Even if it's $2,50 an hour.

Surely, this will make our society more competitive.
It will definitely make some people richer.

And if it runs longer, FireFly will adress those things as well.

Please keep posting your funny criticism, as I would miss it.

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Friday, December 26, 2003 4:12 PM

SAINTPROVERBIUS

Quote:
Originally posted by wz:
I'm sure you won't find them funny, but the point is that you're taking much of it entirely too seriously.

This coming from the guy who wrote a multipage essay on why a show they don't even like should be killed off and why people should start a letter writing campaign to stop any progress on a movie?

Quote:
Example: I didn't think it was inappropriate to name a character after Jubal Early because it paid homage to a Confederate General, I was simply questioning the tastefulness of having that character played by a black actor. I couldn't possibly have made this more clear in the article, and yet you totally missed the point.

You made it quite clear that you also thought there was some glorifcation going on with the sarcastic bit about history stepping on the real Jubal Early.

I made it quite clear that was the part I took exception to, even to the point of underlining it. I made no argument about the race of the character in question because I didn't really care much about that aspect of your complaint enough to expand on it.

Quote:
Example: You seem to think I believe that Firefly will single-handedly bring about a return of the Confederacy and slavery.

I was being sarcastic to made a point there. There's no reason to go in to such detail about the history of such objections if you don't think this way. Merely saying you were being funny doesn't cut it with that level of detail.

Quote:
As to the "not American" (I'm guessing European? Canadian perhaps?) guy who doesn't know or care about the American habit of glorifying the Confederacy, all I can say is, that's fine for you - being "not American" you very probably will not be dragged behind a truck until you are dead because you are different in some way from the owners of said truck. Things like that hardly ever happen in Western Europe (or Canada?),

Yeah, because there's no racism at all in Europe, is there? Only in evil America, mainly due to the South, right?

Quote:
i.e, the freedom to be made into wage slaves by the tiny cabal of capitalists who actually run the country - and who are the spiritual descendents of the Slave Power in the antebellum South.

Wouldn't they be the spiritual descendents of the Northern factory owners? Upton Sinclair would scoff at you, sir.

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Friday, December 26, 2003 6:57 PM

To PB Gaines:

Sorry, I was getting a little over the top there.

Here's an article you, and other Firefly fans might find interesting.

http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/cp/vol-03/no-02/talk/

-Willie Zaza

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Friday, December 26, 2003 7:13 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SaintProverbius:
Quote:
Originally posted by wz:
I'm sure you won't find them funny, but the point is that you're taking much of it entirely too seriously.

Quote:
This coming from the guy who wrote a multipage essay on why a show they don't even like should be killed off and why people should start a letter writing campaign to stop any progress on a movie?

Once again, missing the joke. I did not seriously believe I could stop anyone from making a movie by writing emails.

Quote:
Example: You seem to think I believe that Firefly will single-handedly bring about a return of the Confederacy and slavery.

Quote:
I was being sarcastic to made a point there. There's no reason to go in to such detail about the history of such objections if you don't think this way. Merely saying you were being funny doesn't cut it with that level of detail.

I don't know if the detail you're referring to was in my original essay or the second one. In the first it was there to explain my dislike of Confederate nostalgia (and why I think it is based on faulty history), in the second it was there to answer cloth-eared criticism from the posts on this website. In neither case was it meant to warn the nation of the rise of the Old South thanks to Firefly.

Quote:
i.e, the freedom to be made into wage slaves by the tiny cabal of capitalists who actually run the country - and who are the spiritual descendents of the Slave Power in the antebellum South.

Quote:
Wouldn't they be the spiritual descendents of the Northern factory owners? Upton Sinclair would scoff at you, sir.

What is a plantation if not a factory? An agrarian one yes, but nothing like Jefferson's idea of a yeoman farmer's homestead and quite a lot like a any New England sweatshop. If you want to get into the Haymarket Riots, the Pullman Strike and the Molly Maguires, I can do that too.

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Friday, December 26, 2003 7:28 PM

SUCCATASH

I think we can all agree that our good pal Evil Willie is not stupid and not a vicious troll. I take responsibility for inviting him here. We're beyond rude insults and calling him a moron. I'm pretty sure his day job isn't working at McDonalds. (Sorry to all you burger flippers)

His opinion is very unpopular but I must admit I am learning a lot about the Civil War and Firefly and Browncoats.

Deep down I just know Willie will see the Firefly movie and secretly be excited for it, and the movie will be so good he'll have a lot more to write about.

I don't agree with Willie Zaza in any way and I wish he'd write a positive review of Firefly.

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Friday, December 26, 2003 7:33 PM

Zampano,

Thanks for your thoughtful and intelligent reply. You make a good point about violence and racism in Europe (and you make it much better than saintproverbius did, too). I would think that someone from Germany could certainly appreciate the danger of romanticizing a violent past. I can certainly see a marked similarity between Confederate apologists and Holocaust deniers, can't you? There are still people in this country who seriously put forward the idea that African people were happier as slaves much as there are people in Germany (and the US and elsewhere) who claim the Holocaust never happened. Considering this I think you can see why I have such a violent reaction to Confederate nostalgia.

You wrote:

Quote:
Right now, we are starting an "americanization" of our society, as unemployed people are required from now on to take on any job, no matter how low the wages. Even if it's $2,50 an hour.

Surely, this will make our society more competitive.
It will definitely make some people richer

Frankly, that doesn't sound like "Americanization." True "Americanization" would not involve getting anyone a job (low-paid or otherwise), it would involve firing a lot of people from their jobs, shipping those jobs overseas (to hideous sweat-shops reminiscent of Hieronymous Bosch's depiction of Hell) and then denying the Americans their unemployment benefits because "Americans should be independent and self-reliant!" What you call "Americanization" would be considered socialism by most Americans. Remember, this is the country that elected George W. Bush president (sort of).

Thanks also for encouraging me to keep writing.

-Willie Zaza

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Friday, December 26, 2003 7:45 PM

To Succatash:

Perhaps I will take up your challenge and write an article on "What I like about Firefly." I didn't actually hate it that much (other than the Confederacy thing). It was much better than "Fastlane" for instance, but nowhere near as good as "Homicide: Life on the Street." http://members.aol.com/hlotslinks/ It was somewhere in there in terms of quality. I'm sure it was also much better than "Tru Calling," though I haven't actually seen that show.

No my job isn't working at McDonald's. It's much more lame than that - sitting around waiting to see if I got into grad school (which I'm sure I didn't), so I have plenty of time to rent the DVD's and take another look.

This is becoming entirely too cozy. Perhaps we should return to calling each other morons.

By the way, thanks for telling everyone you invited me here. I'm not so much of a dickhead that I would just come to this site out of sheer boredom and crap all over your favorite show - it's Succatash's fault, Firefly fans.

-Willie Zaza

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Saturday, December 27, 2003 3:08 AM

SAINTPROVERBIUS

Quote:
Originally posted by wz:
I don't know if the detail you're referring to was in my original essay or the second one. In the first it was there to explain my dislike of Confederate nostalgia (and why I think it is based on faulty history), in the second it was there to answer cloth-eared criticism from the posts on this website. In neither case was it meant to warn the nation of the rise of the Old South thanks to Firefly.

Yet there's actually very little direct parallel between the U.S. Civil War and the War of Unification in Firefly, as I've pointed out. In fact, many of your objections about the happenstances about the Civil War in your first article simply aren't analogous to what is in the presentation of the background of Firefly.

You can't even really compare the crew of Firefly to Jessie James, even though you did, because most of the crimes they commit really aren't that bad of crimes - or he refuses to do them if they think there will be someone unjustly harmed by their actions. Examples would include:

Stealing food from a derelict Alliance transport. The Alliance considers this illegal, but that food is probably better spent having people eat it than it is just wasting away on that dead transport, don't you think? No one is really harmed by this theft.

The Train Job, where he steals some Alliance medicine headed to Paradiso, a mining town. They didn't know it was medicine when they stole it, and they didn't know what the circumstances were of the people there. Once he finds out, he returns the medicine to the people and returns the money for the job to the person that hired him. Of course, the person who hired him considered this a double cross, and captured, tortured, even killed Mal and revived him to torture him some more.

In Ariel, they steal medicine from an Alliance hospital. Before deciding to do this, they wanted to know for sure whether or not this would harm anyone. It was established before this episode that the Alliance also did refuse treatment to certain people. Later on, in an episode after they steal the medicine, there was some concern as to whether or not the medicine would make it to the right hands.

Of course, there are cases where the crew steals something of value, like the Lassiter Laser Pistol, and keeps it. I'm sure this hurt the owner, but this is a far cry from Jessie James' bank/train robberies where loss of life was acceptable.

Quote:
What is a plantation if not a factory? An agrarian one yes, but nothing like Jefferson's idea of a yeoman farmer's homestead and quite a lot like a any New England sweatshop. If you want to get into the Haymarket Riots, the Pullman Strike and the Molly Maguires, I can do that too.

I think the main difference would be the word wage in the term wage slaves.

Even if you want to say that there's a bit of cross over there, plantations are factories and what not, I think it's unfair to say that the modern day corporations where the CEOs make billions off the work of the minimum wage hourlies is only due to the Southern plantation owners and not the descendents of the Northern Factory owners who paid little to nothing and disposed of workers when they weren't useful anymore. After all, there were a lot more factories in the industrial booming North than there were plantations in the South.

Quote:
You make a good point about violence and racism in Europe (and you make it much better than saintproverbius did, too).

He made his point before I asked the rhetorical question about racism in Europe. Europe has a long history of anti-semitism going back through the Crusades, as well as more modern examples of Nazi and Neonazi movements in many nations. And yes, many of those movements also claim the holocost is a piece of fictional work.

To say that racism is only an American problem because of one event that occured over five years ago done by three ex-convicts is ludicrious.

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Saturday, December 27, 2003 4:52 AM

CARDIE

According to some interviews with Joss, he was trying to separate from Confederate nostalgia and from the myth of the lone Western hero the racism that's so deeply intertwined in them. For the part of the American population that immigrated here voluntarily, the appeal of the "rebel" figure is understandable. All of them had an ancestor or ancestors who got fed up with how things were being run at home and came here looking to get out from under. When you combine that with the nation's political origin in seceding from its colonial overlords, it's not hard to see the attraction to some aspects of the Confederate rebellion from people who don't buy the racist aspects.

On the other hand, Africans were forcibly brought here and enslaved, and Native Americans displaced so all these immigrant Americans could prosper. There's no way of thinking about the South or the West without these uncomfortable facts coming up. So Joss did a test: what if the rebelliion against the central government really was about the issues of individual sovereignty vs. central authority, unmarked by race? what if the colonized "frontier" were empty of indigenous inhabitants?

I can still see the argument that this is just a dodge to enable those nostalgic for the Confederacy or for the extermination and displacement of the Indians to glory in a restaging of their core myths under cover of the racism having been sanitized out of them. I think it rather lets us look at those myths more dispassionately and to examine the individualism, rebelliousness, and wanderlust that are so much a part of the American character. I do wish we had a better idea of the specific issues that arose between the Alliance and the Independents. It's all too conveniently vague at this juncture. Clarification would probably have been forthcoming.

Good luck on the grad school applications, wz. Academic careers are great; I've had one for 30 years now. Instead of just posting on the web, you can happily hypothesize and speculate about your chosen field in print and to eager students--and get paid for it.

Cardie

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Sunday, December 28, 2003 8:11 AM

To Cardie,

Thanks for the good wishes.

I already posted this link, so you may have already read it, but since it touches on some of the same subjects you brought up, I thought I'd post it again:

http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/cp/vol-03/no-02/talk/

You might find it interesting.

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Sunday, December 28, 2003 8:44 AM

NIMITZ

An idea. Firefly is a kick ass sci-fi television show and has an extensive cult following. With the kinds of subjects brought up on FFF.net and the quotes I've heard used, there must be more than a few computer geeks and hackers among us. Perhaps the hackers among us should unite and nuke that bastards' website into non-existence. Breaking into his computer and ordering it to reformat his hard drive isn't such a bad idea either.

Grumble, snarl...

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Sunday, December 28, 2003 9:06 AM

Posted by saintproverbius:

Quote:
Yet there's actually very little direct parallel between the U.S. Civil War and the War of Unification in Firefly, as I've pointed out. In fact, many of your objections about the happenstances about the Civil War in your first article simply aren't analogous to what is in the presentation of the background of Firefly.

You can keep saying that, but (at least according to the interviews I've seen) Joss Whedon himself wouldn't agree with you. He stated several times that he based his show on the Civil War and Reconstruction. You can interpret Firefly any way you want, but that doesn't change what Joss Whedon said about it. The only other historical analogy from him I've seen is between Mal and the Viet Cong.
http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/cp/vol-03/no-02/talk/

Posted by saintproverbius:

Quote:
You can't even really compare the crew of Firefly to Jessie James, even though you did, because most of the crimes they commit really aren't that bad of crimes

I wasn't directly comparing anything in Firefly to the actual Jesse James. I was comparing the show's depiction of Mal to the myths surrounding people like Jesse James, which depict them as altruistic and kind, when they were actually dangerous psychopaths who rarely, if ever, stole from the rich and gave to the poor. Robin Hood probably never existed. I was saying that Mal and his crew are an extension of this mythology - albeit not based directly on any real person. You could say that since they are fictional my comparison is meaningless, but since Joss Whedon publicly stated several times that he was basing his show on Reconstruction era ex-Confederate outlaws - like Jesse James - I would argue that it is valid.

Posted by WZ:

Quote:
What is a plantation if not a factory? An agrarian one yes, but nothing like Jefferson's idea of a yeoman farmer's homestead and quite a lot like a any New England sweatshop. If you want to get into the Haymarket Riots, the Pullman Strike and the Molly Maguires, I can do that too.

Posted by saintproverbius:

Quote:
I think the main difference would be the word wage in the term wage slaves.

Even if you want to say that there's a bit of cross over there, plantations are factories and what not, I think it's unfair to say that the modern day corporations where the CEOs make billions off the work of the minimum wage hourlies is only due to the Southern plantation owners and not the descendents of the Northern Factory owners who paid little to nothing and disposed of workers when they weren't useful anymore. After all, there were a lot more factories in the industrial booming North than there were plantations in the South.

Slave owners, Northern robber barons and modern CEO's have one thing in common - the desire to receive the most work for the least pay - and a lack of government regulation ("tyranny") helps them to do this. The only real difference is the means they use to achieve their ends, and the moral arguments they use to justify them. You use the same argument against northern capitalism ("Factory owners...paid little to nothing and disposed of workers when they weren't useful anymore.") that Southerners used in the antebellum period and white supremacists use now in defense of the Old South. I would argue that either system was brutal to the working class, but the southern system, which involved ownership of humans, denial of education (which by the way, largely extended to what the Southern ruling class considered "poor white trash") systematic rape, and torture and murder without trial, to be somewhat worse than the Northern system (though not by much). Perhaps I am a namby-pamby, bleeding heart.

Anyway, I never said that modern capitalists are solely the heirs of the southern slave power, I simply wanted to point out that slavery was simply a different kind of capitalism from that pursued in the north, and not some kind of agrarian idyll, as it is often depicted. I was speaking about the south, because that is the subject of this discussion, and the parameters of this discussion were set when Joss Whedon set out to make a sci-fi analogy about Confederate vets during Reconstruction. If he had made one about the IWW or John Reed or US Steel, we'd be talking about that, but he didn't, and he said he didn't, so we're not.

Quote:
To say that racism is only an American problem because of one event that occured over five years ago done by three ex-convicts is ludicrious.

Well you've got a point. Hyperbole doesn't stand up too well in argument. However, if people are going to continue to deny that the Confederacy was a white supremacist movement and wear Confederate battle flags and fly them from their houses, some - not all, mind you - of them must be buying into the whole deal, not just the mythic, self-reliant everyman part of it, and that's what I object to, and what leads to events like the one I mentioned. As long as people are taught that others are different and inferior and the root of all the problems in the world, stuff like that will happen - and I wasn't blaming all American racism on that one incident, I was simply using it as an example - it's hardly a unique event even today.

-Willie Zaza

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Sunday, December 28, 2003 9:17 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Nimitz:
An idea. Firefly is a kick ass sci-fi television show and has an extensive cult following. With the kinds of subjects brought up on FFF.net and the quotes I've heard used, there must be more than a few computer geeks and hackers among us. Perhaps the hackers among us should unite and nuke that bastards' website into non-existence. Breaking into his computer and ordering it to reformat his hard drive isn't such a bad idea either.

Grumble, snarl...

That wouldn't be very nice for the other three people involved with Ratsalad, who, as far as I know, haven't ever seen Firefly and have no opinions about it one way or the other. And doing that would hardly be in the spirit of the show which, as I understand it, is meant to celebrate human freedom? I believe the Four Freedoms were, freedom from want, freedom from fear, freedom of religion and freedom of speech. Please bear in mind, I was invited to post here by a Firefly fan.

-Willie Zaza

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Sunday, December 28, 2003 10:53 AM

ZAMPANO

Quote:
Originally posted by Nimitz:
An idea. Firefly is a kick ass sci-fi television show and has an extensive cult following. With the kinds of subjects brought up on FFF.net and the quotes I've heard used, there must be more than a few computer geeks and hackers among us. Perhaps the hackers among us should unite and nuke that bastards' website into non-existence. Breaking into his computer and ordering it to reformat his hard drive isn't such a bad idea either.

I kind of understand the anger, but real hackers do not nuke websites.

Only assholes do that.

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Monday, December 29, 2003 5:52 AM

BROWNCOAT1

May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one.

I am glad to see that tempers have cooled and that name calling has stopped. Opinions and defense of beliefs tends to cause one to be very passionate and if not held in check can lead to irrational arguing.

Personally, I feel everyone is entitled to their opinion, whether we agree with it or not. I would dare say that many here do not share the opinion of WZ. I know I do not. I think Firefly is one of the best written sci fi shows ever written, and had it been let to run its course, would have attracted a following to rival Star Trek.

My opinions of the Civil War, or War of Northern Aggression, are well known, and have been stated on this board before. I had ancestors that fought for the Confederacy, and not one of them owned a slave. All of them were farmers from Virginia and fought to defend against what they saw as an armed invasion force. Less than 6% of the Southern citizens owned slaves, and of that number, less than 30% actually fought for the Confederacy, so I would respectfully disagree w/ the common misconception that the War was fought mainly to liberate slaves. I can cite Lincoln's speeches, and comments made by him that will show slavery was not his chief concern, but will not do so here as it is not in keeping w/ the theme here.

I do not feel that Firefly is any sort of glorification of the South or the Confederacy, though there are some similarities in history and the storyline. I also respectfully disagree w/ the writer that the show or a movie would in anyway revitalize any sort of idol worship of the Confederacy or its cause. I think everyone should know their heritage, and what roles their ancestors may have played in it. I also encourage people to read more than just history books. I also ask that you remember the saying "history is written by the victor".

I did not much care for the article you posted the link to WZ. It seems to have an anti Confederate slant and seems to write Firefly off simply due to Joss's basing it off of the Reconstruction period of history. People may think what they wish, and write what they wish, but I hold the right to disagree w/ it, as you do our opinion of the show.

"May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one."

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Monday, December 29, 2003 10:22 AM

NIMITZ

Your correct in your analysis of my comments. I was speaking out of anger. My remarks were also influenced by the fact that my sense of humor tends to be based on hyperbole. Besides, harassing his website would only make more people listen to the unenlightened crap he is spewing.

Not only that but it would give him the dangerous position as a persecuted minority. I withdraw my statment.

Quote:
Mal: "Well, my days of not taking you seriously are definitely coming to a middle."

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Monday, December 29, 2003 11:52 AM

GALMASTAN

I read this guys entire site and had to pick up my jaw when I was done. Everyone is entitled to their opinion but this guy is way off his rocker. Anyone who knows Joss Whedon's work knows it isn't about politics, its about humanity and the struggles they go through. Its about individual people, not societies. Just ignore him. Anyone who watches the show will get their own meaning from it.

Fox...the axer of all shows good.

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Monday, December 29, 2003 11:52 AM

GALMASTAN

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Monday, December 29, 2003 11:52 AM

GALMASTAN

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