Serenity strikes a blow for conservatism! by Blinker

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Serenity strikes a blow for conservatism!

POSTED BY: BLINKER
UPDATED: Thursday, June 8, 2006 21:31
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VIEWED: 16108
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Wednesday, April 12, 2006 11:03 PM

You obviously haven't seen many Hollywood films, they often have a more liberal bias.

More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity. But I know none, and therefore am no beast.

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Wednesday, April 12, 2006 11:03 PM

CITIZEN

PriateNews's Commie-Nazi-Jews made me double post (they really are responcible for everything).

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Wednesday, April 12, 2006 11:06 PM

SIXSHOOTER

Everyone likes to see the hero win.
Makes us feel good.
In this big bad world of ours, more often then not, it’s the bad guys who have the last laugh.

I mean, hell, it's always been that way.

My grandpa owned a theater back in the 50's and 60's and he once told me the only sure-fire way to pack out the joint was a John Wayne movie.

A man who's character always stood for what was right and never shot a man in the back.

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Wednesday, April 12, 2006 11:25 PM

FLETCH2

It's about a man stripped to his core and bloody who somehow finds the strength to pull himself to his feet, build a family around him and strives to protect it.

Anyone who doesnt hope they have that strength in themselves irrespective of their politics somehow ceased to be human. What makes Mal compelling isn't so much what he believes but that after all he's been through he can still believe in anything at all.

Grace under pressure.

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Thursday, April 20, 2006 9:02 AM

FUTUREMRSFILLION

That would be between 1937 and 1945.

One day.
One mission.
One army of Browncoats.

On June 23rd, we aim to misbehave!

Nathan doesn't know it yet, but I am his one true love! Is that weird?

(he will believe, he will believe)

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Thursday, April 20, 2006 9:23 AM

JMB9039

It is interesting how Conservativism and Republicanism have become interchangeable and yet aren't always. As an independent left-leaner.. cause I don't know what else to call myself, I must say I disagree that Serenity is conservative.

Libertarian to an extend - classic state right democrat, maybe - republican, no way - conservative, possibly.

Funny that Joss had a country-wide phone in conference to try and get Kerry elected and Bush oustered.

Joss wrote a complex script - the charecters (for the most part) were quite liberal, their idea of government was small, non-intrusive (very libertarian). Some of their philosophies on government could be conservative - and that's not a bad thing - some conservative ideas a great. Too bad the republican party doesn't think so...

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Thursday, April 20, 2006 9:27 AM

FUTUREMRSFILLION

JMB

Will you marry me?

One day.
One mission.
One army of Browncoats.

On June 23rd, we aim to misbehave!

Nathan doesn't know it yet, but I am his one true love! Is that weird?

(he will believe, he will believe)

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Thursday, April 20, 2006 9:49 AM

MISBEHAVING

Quote:
Originally posted by Arabikum:
I wish my English would be better, but I try anyway. I believe the Western-Genre itself is pretty pretty conservative.

Normally I stay the heck away from threads with this kind of title -- my reaction is almost always something like "eww, you got your politics all over my fandom. Clean it up!" Some madness possessed me to click this.

Except... this quote, above, I found interesting, mainly in light of having just finished the very best example of a thoughtful Western in literature, The Ox-Bow Incident by William Van Tilburg Clark.

This book is not about "left or right" but it is very much "right or wrong" and how hard it is to choose between them and how much harder it is to act on what you know is right.

For those that don't know the story, it's about a lynching of a suspected rustler and murderer. A small western town, having already had more incidents of rustling than they like, hears of the murder of a prominent rancher's longtime hand, a man they all know, along with the theft of forty head of cattle, and they form a mob to go chase down and hang the killers.

A local shopkeeper, Davies, is profoundly disturbed by the populace's fervor to hang somebody for the crime, and fears that they will (a) hang an innocent man and (b) trample the rule of law in the process. Davies cares deeply about the rule of law and delivers a stirring speech early in the book, planting doubts in the heart of the narrator. Davies convinces him to go get the sheriff and judge to try to stop the mob -- but the sheriff is thirty miles away and the deputy is no better than the leaders of the mob, and Davies' plan backfires when the deputy grants the cloak of authority to the mob. Davies goes with the mob, trying all the while to convince them to bring whoever they find back to town and give them a fair trial.

Davies' opposite number, Tetley, is a former Confederate cavalry officer. Tetley, a real hardcase and definitely a 'man of action', becomes the leader of the mob to whom almost all the men defer. Bad weather - a snowstorm - sets in on the mountain pass. A passing stagecoach tells the mob of seeing a party of three men camped at a fire up the trail, but the mob also knows of a little valley, the Ox-Bow, just off the pass where a cattle drive could take shelter for the night. In the Ox-Bow three men are found - a young man, Martin, who claims to have just moved to the area, a crazy old man and a Mexican who claims not to know English, both of whom work for Martin. The missing cattle are found with them, and Martin claims to have bought them from the rancher, but can't produce a bill of sale. The Mexican turns out to have, without explanation, the gun of the man they believe to have been murdered. Long story short (too late), it all adds up to a lynching, and a fascinating contest of wills between Tetley and Davies for the hearts and minds of the men in the mob, and Tetley wins - the men hang at sunrise.

When the mob comes back into town, they discover that the men they hanged were telling the truth, and that the man they believed dead was very much alive, and that the forty head of cattle were in fact sold by the rancher.

Davies, in a heart-wrenching scene in a room over the saloon, pours out his heart to the narrator and says that he could have, would have, should have stopped Tetley because he knew in their hearts that most of the men were just looking for an excuse not to follow him because they had doubts, but failed at the last because he lacked the courage to act. It would have taken a gun, he said, but at the very last what I felt in my heart was that I was glad that I didn't have one. And so, the angry mob was allowed to kill innocent people.

The Ox-Bow Incident was published in 1940. When asked, late in his life, what he meant to symbolize, Clark said that many people naturally draw the comparison with Nazism and the way it was allowed to grow unchecked and without protest. But what he really intended, he said, was not just to make that comparison but to talk about a kind of American Nazism, not like the German-American Bund but one entirely homegrown cloaked in patriotism, and to say that it can happen here, and in fact has on smaller scales in the past -- and that it will take great courage to stand up for what is right in the face of men of action who are willing to act for the sake of acting.

Sound like a Firefly kind of story to you?

Sure does to me.

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Friday, April 21, 2006 4:03 AM

JMB9039

FUTUREMRSFILLION

The offer is tempting but I'm afraid my fiance might not approve... actually she might just

LOL

Viva La Firefly!

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Friday, April 21, 2006 4:05 AM

ORPHEUS

Quote:
The success of Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, and of films like Lord of the Rings, Serenity

Serenity a success? Since when? I don't seem to recall it doing Lord of the Rings numbers.

____________________
"Were there monkeys? Some terrifying space monkeys maybe got loose?"

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Friday, April 21, 2006 6:56 PM

SPACEPIRATEQUEEN

Quote:
Originally posted by UnregisteredCompanion:
The whole "Lets meddle and make people better against their will"...well, that reminds me of some of my liberal associates.

Funny, that reminds me of conservativism, with the whole don't-be-gay-or-have-premarital-sex-etc. dealies. For me liberalism means that I'm quite cool with people being however they like and doing whatever they please, so long as they don't (noncensensually) hurt anyone else.

While I don't think Firefly or Serenity have definite political messages, people are obviously reading things in. If anything, I think it points out the thin line between large-scale socialism and fascism.

As for Lord of the Rings...caw. Religious influences, sure, but the story was heavily based on Norse mythology and intended to provide England with the mythology Tolkien believed had been stolen by William the Bastard/Conquerer. NOT political.

__________________
Wife soup!

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Monday, April 24, 2006 2:45 PM

FUTUREMRSFILLION

Oh no Mr bashing! Tell her I was just swayed by your right speakin' and meant no disrepect!

One day.
One mission.
One army of Browncoats.

On June 23rd, we aim to misbehave!

Nathan doesn't know it yet, but I am his one true love! Is that weird?

(he will believe, he will believe)

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Monday, April 24, 2006 2:48 PM

FUTUREMRSFILLION

Hear! Hear!

So happy to be surrounded by some many erudite individuals!

One day.
One mission.
One army of Browncoats.

On June 23rd, we aim to misbehave!

Nathan doesn't know it yet, but I am his one true love! Is that weird?

(he will believe, he will believe)

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Sunday, April 30, 2006 1:44 AM

MALSHEART

Erudite cousins, I am a UK newbie, and am pleased to see this thread. Joss wove a rich cloth for us with Firefly - which is exactly why I love it. Maybe LOTR or Serenity aren't political, but everything has a relationship with morality. Mal, Zoe and crew have a code, as do each of us as fans and as individuals...Firefly can appeal to all of us, because nothing is ever simple in life, or on board that beautiful ship.
I wish you all a peaceful journey through your personal 'verse.

there was no end...

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Monday, May 29, 2006 6:38 PM

the movie is not the Series. Only the facts have been changed, to irritate the innocent; the names of the actors and characters remain the same

Quote:
Originally posted by sixshooter:
My grandpa owned a theater back in the 50's and 60's and he once told me the only sure-fire way to pack out the joint was a John Wayne movie.

A man who's character always stood for what was right and never shot a man in the back.

In the most charitable interpretation, he shot Liberty Valance in the side, when Liberty wasn't looking at him.

Keep the Shiny Side Up . . .

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Tuesday, May 30, 2006 5:33 AM

MSG

Nicely said Nervous Pete!
I think it's odd that we all look for a definative political statement in a show/movie about the variety and differences in us all. All the people on Serenity have different upbringings, values, and beliefs and they all seem to find a way to make those work together ( somewhat shakily) for the common good. If anything, this is in direct opposition to politicians of all kinds! Politicians are all the same. Let's here it for a nice constitutional monarchy ;)

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Tuesday, May 30, 2006 5:45 AM

CHRISISALL

This whole left-right thing makes me sleepy.
Like in a fight, should I hit my opponent with my left or my right?
I guess that depends how I'm positioned at the moment

.

Mal-like Chrisisall

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Wednesday, May 31, 2006 5:00 AM

PAGANPAUL

Is Firefly/Serenity right wing, left wing, liberal, conservative, republican, democrat, socialist, communist, etc? I think Joss answered that question himself:

"A lot of people are asking me, you know, what exactly is Firefly? It's a TV show you morons!" - Joss Whedon

You people need to get a life!

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

流口水的婊子和猴子的笨儿子。
Liou coe shway duh biao-tze huh hoe-tze duh bun ur-tze.
"Stupid son of a drooling whore and a monkey."

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Thursday, June 8, 2006 9:31 PM

NUCKLES87

You know, upon re-reading this article...I fail to see how Lord of the Rings and Passion of Christ are conservative. Especially LotR. I mean, I know convservatives like to think they are the god fearing group and the liberals are godless heathens, but...it was a religous film, not a political film.

Lord of the Rings...I have no idea how that can be considered conservative leaning. Or political leaning at all.

Team America...never saw it. But I thought it was making fun of America in general?

Serenity is a mix of many political views, that clash and conflict. All nine of our heroes (and villains) have their political views, both liberal and conservative.

So...yeah. The conservatives must be real desperate for a movie to call their own that actually did well...

PS: Apologies if I offended anyone. This article irritates me a little, so I vented a little. I used a lot of sarcasm/unserious comments in this that I did not make obvious. I'm not debating anything I said in this either.

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