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FIREFLY AS AMERICAN MYTHOS (PART FINAL)...SORRY...LONG RANT

Wednesday, January 3, 2007 2:41:40 PM

In the ‘Verse, despite an interplanetary parliament and a vote on Unification (Inara, Out of Gas), democracy doesn’t save anyone. Neither does fighting. “Sorry, Luke, the Rebellion failed. It was just too hot to send in that gorram air support.” Although Mal won’t hesitate to shoot an unarmed Operative, he doesn’t go blasting Badger out of his den in some over-inflated machismo rampage when he doesn’t get paid. Money and privilege ain’t the answer neither. Inara is not as free as she seems. Simon loses everything. Jayne gets pinched trying to sell the Tam’s out. Power? Even the Alliance ain’t as all-powerful as it seems. They can’t control the Rim’s crime, let alone the Reavers. Even Ranse in Heart of Gold , with all his fanaticism and gun-waving, gets it in the forehead. Freedom itself is an illusion. It’s awfully crowded in Malcolm’s sky. The Bible doesn’t seem to say anything about freezing to death in space to Book in Out of Gas . (Note: I don’t share Joss’s atheism…just the opposite. That’s another rant for another time.)

In the ‘Verse, there is no answer. Bad wins a lot. People starve. Things go wrong. Even the Browncoats aren’t all innocent – in Bushwacked , Harken implies that he witnessed mutilation on the part of the Independents, further implying Mal was to blame for staging a Reaver attack. Even the myth of our benevolent Browncoat is a lie. Mal is a bad man, no matter how much medicine he gives back to the local sheriff or how cutely Kaylee says otherwise. Though I am somewhat critical of Those Left Behind , we do see that Mal will knowingly steal money from folk. He will shoot a man in the head rather than let him on the mule to escape Reavers. That powerful need to eat can be quite the justification for liberating anyone from their precious coin.

Mal, on the other hand, still cracks me up when he shoots the unarmed Operative or yanks Simon's cord in the Serenity pilot ("Kaylee's dead" gag). It's not that I think Mal is simply a cool badass, and therefore could kick either Han Solo’s or Picard's butt without shedding a tear (moral tear, that is. I’m sure he’d still yelp when Simon tries to stitch him up again). It's just that Firefly is more real .

Mythos, in the end, isn’t about answering the questions. It isn’t about forty-minute solutions or triumphant endings to thrilling trilogies, as fun as that is. Husbands and mentors die. We mess up and steal medicine for a sadistic crime boss. The gorram air support don’t come no matter how many times I kiss my shiny gold cross. Jayne ain’t no saint that’ll deliver us from boss Higgins. In the end, all we real people know is to keep flyin’. Sometimes we lose, and the Powers-that-Be cancel shows a world more real than American Idol. Sometimes we win, and movies get made. Sometimes grand actions like a civil war end up meaning nothing. Sometimes, the small acts of love and faith and hope can stand up against the most hellish Reaver, Operative, Fox Network Executive, or Alliance.

It’s been years, now, since a small Firefly full of nobodies first flew the Black. We ain’t pretty, honorable, or all that good. We ain’t rich or powerful. But we are real – Browncoats, Purplebellies, and regular folk alike. It is we who are aboard Serenity. Them that don’t care to look much will call it fiction, but we know otherwise. And if you’re reading this, you know we’re still flyin’.

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