While on my travels, I happened to take the entirety of Firefly with me to while away those long hours on planes, trains and automobiles. Ostensibly, Kait and I would watch together and have something to discuss during our eight our explorations of Canada’s back roads but Kait thought it would be more entertaining to get sick and spend her time unconscious or vomiting.
However, I can’t really write a blog post on digestive discomfort… or can I?
Firefly and all its component parts are belong to Fox and Mutant Enemy Productions in their respective capacities.
I digress. Coming off my month of positivity, I knew I was going to immediately fall into my hyper-critical, cranky and condemning nature. I can not help it–learning from failure is so much easier than from successes. There’s also far more to discuss with things that don’t work than those that do. However, during my month of positivity I mentioned a number of things that I enjoyed. One of those was the aforementioned cancelled television show Firefly from the eponymous Josh Whedon of Avengers fame. And though I like Firefly, that does not make it immune to flaws and critique. Reliving those handful of episodes reminded me of all the wonder and frustration of the series. It was entertaining but it also had its share of issues.
And I’m going to take about one of the biggest ones.
Firefly is interesting as it serves as a retro-futuristic setting much in the enjoyable vein as Fallout. It creates a universe set well beyond our time and far beyond our galaxy but instead of the fantastical dressings of similar setups like Star Wars, Firefly goes to great pains to be both familiar and immediately understandable. It is more a fusion of genres, smashing elements of science fiction and space operas with a traditional cowboy western. It’s a fascinating mix of old and new. Individuals stomp around in combat boots, duster coats and bowler hats while firing bullet-less firearms or playing holographic pool. Taking this unfamiliar smattering of familiar elements to a greater extreme, Firefly also blends western and eastern influences into a peculiar hodge-podge where kanji and Cantonese decorates the sets just as much as horses and saddles.
It’s fun, interesting and somewhat weird. Anytime the audience begins to settle into its separate genre conventions, the show will rapidly upend expectations with its almost incongruent components. Cattle wrangling will be followed by high adrenaline space battles. Hi-tech robbery will shift into frontier firefights upon horseback. It follows its own madness that is so easy to settle in and lose oneself amongst. There is a lot of world building going on in both the show’s fore and background and as a universe it would serve as an excellent example of many elements we discuss on this blog.
Unfortunately, not all of it is seamless. Some elements seem too jarring and break the excellent mix of psychic experimentation and civil fighting. Two of the largest are its subjects of preachers, sin and sex. There is no denying the influence or importance of preachers on the wild frontier but the use of Firefly’s analog leaves much to be desired. The main character to represent this aspect of life-Shepard Book-is rather contradictory and underused in the thirteen episodes. Most of his personal plot even eschews his religious aspect and hints at the dark past which haunts him for the short series. It’s a convenient way to avoid the implications of his role in the galactic society but it leaves lingering questions of what faith appears like in this distant stretch of the cosmos. Ostensibly he is little more than a standard Christian missionary but given its far futuristic setting it is not unreasonable to assume that the face of the pious has changed during times even more bizarre than our own modern technological advances. Consequently, Book’s spiritual discussions rarely say anything of worth nor reveal much on spirituality in the Firefly universe. And outside of the pilot episode, there is no real indication that anyone else is particularly pious as nearly all religious iconography has vanished in this envisioning of what is to come.
Sorry, that’s a lie. Nearly all Christian iconography has vanished. There is tons of religious symbology in Firefly but it is almost solely devoted to Buddhist representations. While Shepard Book is called the “Soul of Serenity” in the crew commentary there is another member of the crew who is just as devout even if she follows a different set of teachings.
And she is perhaps the worst character in the show.
Inara Serra is a Companion and the one character of the show who has no right being on the spaceship Serenity. Which is unfortunate because Morena Baccarin is absolutely lovely and I would totally watch a show that was just about her. The big problem of Inara, however, was that the writers clearly had no god damn idea what to do with her.
Morena Baccarin as Inara Serra.
She was a whore. And she did whoring.
But Inara Serra serves as the best example of the advice “show – don’t tell.” From her introduction, we are graced with a woman of elegance and refinement. And the moment immediately following her stepping down the ragged steps of Serenity’s cargo hold the captain-Malcolm Reynolds-introduces her as a joke and a space prostitute. The audience is never shown her as anything else.
Which is concerning given the amount of dialogue devoted to the contrary. As I mentioned, Inara is a Companion which, supposedly, is a position in society that carries much power and sway. Her justification for being on the ship is that she “opens doors otherwise close to the crew.” Given that Mal and his band of misfits are either fringe members of society, fugitives or outlaws, the implication is that Inara represents the upper crust of refinement and social gravitas in the Firefly universe. But why or how she opens these doors is never explained. She is consistently and repeatedly shown as just a space prostitute. No more infuriating is this than in the episodes which are actually devoted to her: Shindig and Heart of Gold. The first is easily the worst episode in the entire series (in my humble opinion) and the second is also quite bad. Shindig was written to obvious explain this inherent separation between Inara and the crew of Serenity and explain exactly what she does. The episode goes to great lengths to talk about “two different worlds” and for the characters of Inara and Mal to struggle with entering each others.
And in Shindig, Inara is called out as a whore at least twice in her polite society to which she reacts with shock and surprise. Which is hilariously confusing because whenever anyone talks about her profession, that’s exactly how they treat her. Heart of Gold, on the other hand, is an episode specifically about a brothel unaffiliated with Companions… except it’s run by an ex-Companion and the crew is brought in on the request of the only Companion the series shows. Once again, Inara is intimately connected with prostitution through association and connection with the Madame. The series consistently shows Inara as a whore while constantly trying to argue she is not.
Which is a shame since the concept of Companions, ostensibly, is meant to represent a completely alien concept to the viewers. To say she is just a whore is to undermine the clear efforts the producers and designers of the show went to in order to suggest otherwise. Companions belong to a guild which requires years of service and devotion in order to obtain their credentials. Their lives are steeped in mysticism and spirituality. When Inara spends her time with a client, nearly every director goes to great pains to frame her service as an emotional and psychological session than just some cheap, throw-away sex. And there is the ever persistent insistence that Companions are not that which Mal continues to jape with perhaps The Train Job being the sole moment where we see Inara spring Mal and his first mate Zoe from constable custody with nothing but a ragtag story and a flash of her credentials. Inara is called the “Heart of Serenity” and her few scenes with Shepard Book suggests quite heavily that Book plays at being a priest but Inara actually serves in that spiritual propensity. He condemns and quotes scripture while she tends to the mending of personal crises and questions of faith. Book is represented as an officer than anything else–patrolling for breaches of scriptural law and morality while Inara serves more as a teacher and healer for the existential needs of her companions.
Geisha are entertainers and hostesses. Their connection to sex is a western construct misconstrued from the American occupation of World War II. Photo credit: me.
Inara is best described as a space geisha with a heavy emphasis on her spiritual training. Unfortunately, Firefly falls into the western trap of misrepresenting the idea of geisha as being nothing more than upscale prostitutes which is far from the truth of the seemingly source of inspiration for the Companions. Consequently, this lack of understanding spirals grossly out of control to that Inara and her sex services are the sole point of representation and discussion with all other functions dismissed and ignored.
I find this infuriating because I enjoy science fiction and fantasy for its fantastical parts. It allows us to conceive, portray and explore ideas and peoples unhinged by the connotations and restrictions of modern times. It’s the speculation of speculative fiction which I believe draws the audience and thus Inara and the Companions should have been a major source of interest and intrigue. What would a highly influential guild of women courtesans mean for a society and its integration into the wider world? Why do these whores supposedly wield such power and how can this influence the way we see modern sex workers and sex itself?
According to Firefly, nothing and thus it is the series greatest misstep. But it need not be that way. As always, criticism without constructive feedback is useless. I have thought about Inara and the Companions and feel that, ultimately, the issue with the character rests on that early episode. Shindig was an unmitigated disaster which, had it been written better, probably could have taken Inara and elevated her to be the most complex and intriguing character on the ship instead of solely existing for cheap sexual tension and the butt of sex jokes.
And how you would do that is completely rewrite the character of Atherton Wing. Atherton is the man who hires Inara for the titled party. He first appears when Inara is browsing through a list of clients–as a Companion always chooses her clients instead of the other way around–and in the middle of her listening to an incredibly awkward proposition from some wide-eyed youth, Atherton bursts on Inara’s screen with a smile and grace. The two laugh and banter, making mention of how long its been since their last exchange and how he would be delighted if Inara would accompany him to the biggest party on the planet. Inara accepts with nary a hesitation.
The next time we see Atherton, he’s grossly belittling her to little more than a sex toy and angrily announcing that he paid for Inara’s service and she is little more than a servant and nothing else. This keeps in line with Inara the Whore but it is wholly inappropriate for Inara the Companion as well as the friendliness which Atherton first expressed when he propositioned her.
No, instead, Atherton should have been nothing but accommodating and gracious. He should have played the perfect “host.” When proposing that Inara give up her galactic trotting days and become his personal Companion, he should have made the focus specifically on what he could offer her and how he could meet her standards. His wealth, connections and prestige should have been presented as though they were an offering that made him worthy of her and not the other way around.
Oddly enough, “Half of the men wish you were on their arm but all of them wish you were in their bed” isn’t really the best way to woe a woman. Who knew?
For, I feel, the Companions should have served an integral part of the Firefly universe. They should have been “ambassadors” as Mal blithely teases in the pilot episode. They should have been the arbitrators of social standings. They should have been the neutral parties trained for years in reclusion in the many ways and protocols of the wide collection of planets in the core and rim. They more than the Alliance represent a unifying force amongst the disparate peoples. The smile of a Companion should bring fortune upon a person. Her dismissal would mean near social ruin. They should be dignitaries of class. For, they are trained to read and judge people, searching for those of pure spirit and to tend to their needs. Sex is but a minute portion of their work-a distinction that should be lost on all the plebeians who lack the refinement of higher society. The moment Inara stepped into the Shindig, she shouldn’t have been the one going around greeting the guests, it should have been the guests tripping over themselves in order to greet Inara.
The Companions, after all, choose their clients and those clients should be scrambling to make a good impression in order for the opportunity be on her arm at the next shindig.
This complete inversion of the power dynamic between woman and man, especially in the case of modern times in relation to client and service worker, would say far more about gender, sex and sexuality in the Firefly universe than any persistence demonstrated in the thirteen episodes which aired. This confounding relationship would also make an easy conflict to show how Malcolm Reynolds truly does not belong in that “world.” When he blithely asks Inara for a dance, his presumptuousness should have been met with gasps of shock from the attendants. When the issue of a duel between Mal and Atherton was raised, it should not have been Mal defending the honour of Inara but Atherton Wing. The series argues, numerous times, how inappropriate it is to refer to a Companion as merely a common “whore” and this episode should have demonstrated just that. Mal should have used this tactless jab at her profession and it should have been the very social casus belli Atherton needed in order to wrangle the captain into a sword duel he was wholly incapable of performing.
Gina Torres has nothing to do with this rant. She’s just awesome and I wanted to put her in.
Instead, the show was cheap. It was cheap in its portrayal of sex workers who are reduced to being nothing but cheap thrills despite their union and insistence to the contrary. It was cheap in its portrayal of its villains, going for blatant misogyny in order to instill antipathy towards Atherton instead of relying on his cunning and ability to manipulate Mal’s brashness and ignorance in order to create a favourable circumstance for him to remove a potential rival for Inara’s affections. But more than anything else, it was cheap towards Inara herself reducing a character focused on spiritual needs and guidance to just being a good lay for 100 credits.
