Internet stupidity strikes again

[Adrian McNair]

According to this pearl of wisdom, Firefly is a rapist's view of the world.

Ah, the Internet. Where every moron has the opportunity to project their verbal diarrhea upon unsuspecting browsers.

[DesertFly]

According to this pearl of wisdom, Firefly is a rapist's view of the world.

Ah, the Internet. Where every moron has the opportunity to project their verbal diarrhea upon unsuspecting browsers.

So why are you giving it attention if you hate it so much? Do you want us to go and argue with the poster in comments? What good would that do? Or is it that you actually think they make some good points, and want to discuss them? If that's the case, why not just say so?

[Adrian McNair]

So why are you giving it attention if you hate it so much? Do you want us to go and argue with the poster in comments? What good would that do? Or is it that you actually think they make some good points, and want to discuss them? If that's the case, why not just say so?

Uh...no, I was just showcasing this example of idiocy so it could be mocked mercilessly. Did you think I was going for irony?

[Axiomatic]

Possibly the coolest part of that is her outrage that Zoe addresses her superior officer as "sir".

[Keevan_Colton]

Flicking through that journal this tool is convinced that sex = rape...and pretty much seems to think that all men are bastards out to objectify and use women and ignores any points to the contrary. She actually has lesbianism as a political choice to "stick it to the man" so to speak...

[Zablorg]

The first scene opens in a war with Mal and Zoe. Zoe runs around calling Mal ‘sir’ and taking orders off him. I roll my eyes. Not a good start.

So, what is this person telling us? That women should never be in a position to call anyone "sir"?

The next scene is set in the present. Mal, Jayne, and Zoe are floating about in space. They come into some danger. Mal gets all panicky.

Zoe says, “This ship's been derelict for months. Why would they –”

Mal replies, (in Chinese) “Shut up.”

Mal tells people to shut up all the time early in the series. But when he does it to a woman and it just goes too far.

The next scene we meet Kaylee, the ship’s mechanic. <- Lookee, lookee, feminist empowerment. In this scene Mal and Jayne are stowing away the cargo they just stole. Kaylee is chatting to them, happily. Jayne asks Mal to get Kaylee to stop being so cheerful. Mal replies, “Sometimes you just wanna duct tape her mouth and dump her in the hold for a month.” Yes, that is an exact quote, “Sometimes you just wanna DUCT TAPE HER MOUTH and DUMP HER IN THE HOLD FOR A MONTH.” Kaylee responds by grinning and giving Mal a kiss on the cheek and saying, “I love my Captain.”

This woman has me thouroughly bamboozled.

[Zablorg]

Oh yes, I just found this:

Let me just say now that I have never personally known of a healthy relationship between a white man and a woman of colour.

Just... wow.

[Zixinus]

I do not truly understand the fascination with stupidity. I see no point in getting your blood pressure up unnecessarily.

After reading a first few paragraphs I have concluded that this woman hates men immensely and considers nothing less then direst oppression of males feminist.

She deliberately misinterpret any scene to portray the women as suffering while the men dominating. I would advise a psychologist or therapist to this woman, because the more I read the more I am given the impression that this woman has some very traumatic issues with men.

To show, I've taken random blurbs:

It is clear from the outset that a large part of Inara’s service involves addressing issues of male inadequacy and fulfilling many other emotional needs of her clients. The ability to do this IS a resource and it is therefore a service that Inara must perform. BUT Inara services all of the male passengers and the Captain in this way. She also services Kaylee but the relationship between them is a little more reciprocal. In any case, Mal makes it pretty obvious that he expects his emotional needs to be serviced by Inara and she willingly obliges. Mal also allows the male passengers to demand her emotional services and does not tell them to stop, despite the terms of his agreement with Inara. Inara is not paid by any of these men for her time, energy and emotional support.

Aside from women being fuck toys, property and punching bags for the men, the women have very little importance in the series. I counted the amount of times women talk in the episode Serenity compared to the amount of times men talk. The result was unsurprising. Men: 458 Women: 175. So throughout the first episode men talk more than two and a half times as much as women do. And women talk mainly in questions whereas men talk in statements. Basically, this means that men direct the action and are active participants whereas women are merely observers and facilitators.

Completely unnecessary and unprovoked violence is a spontaneous result of this hypermasculinised male character. In Serenity, Mal enjoys using a character called Simon as his personal punching bag. In one scene he walks up to him and smashes him in the face, without any provocation or logical reason. In another scene Simon asks Mal a question and Mal smashes him the face again. No reason, no explanation, just violence. Violence is a part of the landscape throughout the whole series and Mal is often the instigator. He is constantly rubbing himself up against other men, and punishing wayward women, proving and solidifying his manliness through bashing the shit out of anyone and everyone.

Zoe is not shown to have a personality of her own. She has no outside interests, no ideas or beliefs, no conversation with anyone other than Wash or Mal. She has no female friends, in fact she tends to dislike women. For example, she is the first one to insult Saffron in the episode Our Mrs. Reynolds, calling her ‘trouble’.

And I didn't even try poking at the worst. This are truly random bits.

[Bladed_Crescent]

Wow, the crazy just drips off this post like soft taffy, doesn't it? Mmm... taffy. It's kind of hard to provide adequate snark to this, but I'll do my best. I was considering posting this to the LJ in question, but I doubt it'd be taken seriously.

Also, a friend pointed me towards this humourous rebuttal: Firefly is anti-male.

Let's begin.

For myself, I’m not sure that I will recover from the shock of watching....

You know, there's a stereotype of women being emotionally fragile. I'm not sure why a self-proclaimed feminist is propagating it. Quick! Get her a fainting couch and a doctor trained in female hysteria! There's no time to lose - her very fragile feminine self is in danger!

There is so much hatred towards women contained within the scripts and action of the series that I doubt very much that this post will even begin to cover it.

I doubt very much that this post will either, since there's a lot to include when you just make everything up.

And a Shepherd (which means preacher), a black male character.

You know, maybe it's just me, but there's something off about Book being dismissed as a 'black male character'....

The first scene opens in a war with Mal and Zoe. Zoe runs around calling Mal ‘sir’ and taking orders off him. I roll my eyes. Not a good start.

Yes, a woman should never address a male superior officer in a respectful manner. Ever. The proper way for Zoe to address Mal is obviously a condescending shake of the head and a dismissive: "Yeah, whatever, sperm bank."

Jayne asks Mal to get Kaylee to stop being so cheerful. Mal replies, “Sometimes you just wanna duct tape her mouth and dump her in the hold for a month.”

As he does so, he's smiling and obviously making a joke about Kaylee's nonstop exuberance. At no point has he ever threatened Kaylee with actual harm. In fact, when Simon made his ultimatum, Mal told him that if he let Kaylee die, he'd kill him.

Kaylee responds by grinning and giving Mal a kiss on the cheek and saying, “I love my Captain.”

Because she's aware that his threat is not in any way serious.

Zoe says, “This ship's been derelict for months. Why would they –”

Mal replies, (in Chinese) “Shut up.”

You know what ships can detect? Radio signals. You know what Zoe was using to talk to Mal? The radio. There's very little chance that the Alliance cruiser could pick up the signal, but it's unnessecarily risky to use a communications device when you're doing something illegal and a large, well-armed warship is hovering overhead.

And she does shut up. And she continues to call him sir. And takes his orders, even when they are dumb orders, for the rest of the series.

This would be because he's her captain and her former sergeant during the war. Ships are not run by the democratic process. No matter who you are or who they are, you follow your captain's orders. Even if they are dumb. Don't like it? Find a new ship, or lead a mutiny.

Zoe's a bit more formal towards Mal than the rest of the crew, but that's because of their history.

Our first introduction to Inara the ‘Companion’, Joss Whedon’s euphemism for prostituted women, is when she is being raped/fucked/used by a prostitutor.

Companions are not prostitutes - Inara makes this very point in Heart of Gold. In fact, it's pointed out several times that Companions have extremely high standing in society. In Out of Gas, when Inara is negotiating with Mal about the shuttle, she tells him that he's going to rent it to her below the asking pricce because she brings him respectability. In Serenity, Kaylee points out to Book that there are worlds that won't deal with you unless you have Companion. In The Train Job, the sheriff and locals treat Inara as a VIP, even knowing that she is a Companion.

It's pointed out multiple times that Inara chooses her clients; we even see them sending her applications in the hopes that she'll pick them. After she was treated badly in Shindig and her client threatens to 'blacklist' her, she informs him that 'it doesn't work like that' - she's going to mark him in the Guild's registry and no Companion will ever take him as a client again. He doesn't have any power over her.

The women who ‘choose’ to be ‘Companions’ are shown as being intelligent, accomplished, educated, well-respected and presumably from good families. If a woman had all of these qualities and opportunities then why the fuck would she ‘choose’ to be a man’s fuck toy? Would being a fuck toy for hundreds of men give a woman like Inara personal fulfillment? Job satisfaction? A sense of purpose? Fulfill her dreams? Ambitions?

Maybe she just likes sex. But of course, that's not the correct way of thinking, is it? A woman should never, ever, ever enjoy sex with men. Ever.

It's mentioned that she chooses clients because she likes something about them, not because she's forced to do it. As mentioned, she's intelligent, educated and in a member of Alliance high society - if she wanted another job, it wouldn't be too hard to find one. So therefore, she must like something about her current job.

EVER.

The third thing that Mal says in the first interaction between Inara and Mal is, “She’s a whore…” Does Inara stop him from calling her a whore? Nope. She just goes on smiling and being gracious. So he calls her a whore again. Lovely man this Mal is, dontcha think?

Because picking a fight while you're being introduced to someone is very diplomatic. Inara does berates Mal in private for this and often gets into arguments with him about his behaviour. As well, when Shepherd Book goes to apologize, Inara points out that Mal was trying to make Book uncomfortable.

Book is a black male character.

Okay... it's just me, right? Continually referring to one of the people as 'the black guy' doesn't say else, right?

...right?

BUT Inara services all of the male passengers and the Captain in this way. She also services Kaylee but the relationship between them is a little more reciprocal. In any case, Mal makes it pretty obvious that he expects his emotional needs to be serviced by Inara and she willingly obliges. Mal also allows the male passengers to demand her emotional services and does not tell them to stop, despite the terms of his agreement with Inara. Inara is not paid by any of these men for her time, energy and emotional support.

Uhm... I... uh... wow. Unless it's a 900 number, I wasn't aware that having conversations with a woman required you to compensate her. Doubtless, simply being in the presence of men is so trying that it's enough on its own to deserve payment.

I counted the amount of times women talk in the episode Serenity compared to the amount of times men talk. The result was unsurprising. Men: 458 Women: 175. So throughout the first episode men talk more than two and a half times as much as women do.

It's both sad and amusing that she took the time to figure this out. Anyways, male characters have more lines than women - could it be because there's more of them? OH NOES MORE MEN THNA WOMEN - SEXISM!

Given the fact that women are largely absent from the action and the dialogue of the majority of scenes it is unsurprising that the action onscreen is highly homoerotic. Men jostle with each other for power. Pushing each others buttons, and getting into scuffles. This intense homoeroticism is present from the outset as Mal asserts his rights as alpha male on the ship.

...men arguing with each other is homoerotic?

I... uh... wow. I mean... what?

Beyond a shadow of a doubt, Joss uses his own wife in this way. Expects her to clean up his emotional messes. Expects her to be there, eternally supportive, eternally subservient and grateful to him in all his manly glory. I hope the money is worth it, Mrs. Whedon. But somehow I doubt that it is. No amount of money can buy back wasted emotional resources.

Goddamn.

And this is based on...?

In Serenity, Mal enjoys using a character called Simon as his personal punching bag. In one scene he walks up to him and smashes him in the face, without any provocation or logical reason.

Uh, yes - he thought Simon was an Alliance mole. He found him alone in the cargo bay - despite his explicity instructions earlier in the episode that passengers were not allowed there - and tinkering with some unknown equpiment.

In another scene Simon asks Mal a question and Mal smashes him the face again. No reason, no explanation, just violence.

This would be a lie. Simon angrily asks Mal if he's working for the Alliance. Given what Mal went through fighting the Alliance, he does not take this well. He overreacted yes, but it was not without reason.

Her role is to support Mal’s manly obsession with himself by encouraging him, calling him ‘sir’, and even starting the fights for him.

He is her captain and her squad leader from the war. Is Spock supporting Kirk's manly obsession wtih himself in STIV when he refers to Jim as 'captain', when the crew broke Starfleet law (and thus, no longer entitled to rank) and are now in 20th century San Franciso?

Well, I guess it depends on if Shatner'd outgrown his prima donna phase by then...

I'm also trying to picture which of Mal's fights Zoe started. I'm not coming up with anything, given that Mal doesn't need help to start a fight. (Shindig, War Stories, Ariel, etc.)

In fact there is a whole episode, War Stories, devoted to Wash and Mal’s ‘rivalry’. By the word rivalry, I mean violent, homoerotic male/male courtship conducted over the body of a woman.

......what?

She has no female friends, in fact she tends to dislike women. For example, she is the first one to insult Saffron in the episode Our Mrs. Reynolds, calling her ‘trouble’.

And the evidence for this is... oh, right. One episode where a stowaway appeared on board and disrupted the normal routine of the ship. Yes, clearly from that we can infer that she dislikes all women.

Her husband, Wash, talking about how he likes to watch her bathe.

This just in: men are no longer allowed to enjoy the sight of a female body.

Let me just say now that I have never personally known of a healthy relationship between a white man and a woman of colour.

Ah, projection. It tastes like taffy.

So you will forgive me for believing that the character, Wash, is a rapist and an abuser, particularly considering that he treats Zoe like an object and possession.

Not when we clearly see that if Wash treated Zoe like that, she'd break him in half. In fact, he says as much to Saffron. Earlier in the episode, she glares at Wash disapprovingly over Saffron's comments about her making him dinner. In The Body, she slips up behind an Alliance soldier and slits his throat. Obviously, this is a type of woman who will sit back and meekly let 'her man' do whatever he wants to do her.

In War Stories, when Wash finds out that she's lied to him, his reaction is anger, yes. But he doesn't start swearing at her, or become abusive. He says that he's capable of dealing with unpleasant news and that she should have been up front with him.

Clearly, the devil incarnate.

I've probably missed a few bits, but I'm not feeling adequate snark from this, so I guess this'll do.

[Peptuck]

......everytime I see something like this, I honestly start to wonder how humanity survived this long.

[Aaron]

......everytime I see something like this, I honestly start to wonder how humanity survived this long.

In this case it's because if she had raised points like this before the 18th century or so, she'd have been fucking killed.

[Zixinus]

In this case it's because if she had raised points like this before the 18th century or so, she'd have been fucking killed.

Or beaten into submission.

[Aaron]

Or beaten into submission.

Exactly, take your pick.

[Peptuck]

Reading through this, I'm surprised she doesn't even speak a word regarding River, who is easily the most submissive female character in the entire show.

[Aaron]

Reading through this, I'm surprised she doesn't even speak a word regarding River, who is easily the most submissive female character in the entire show.

Rivers batshit crazy, this womans batshit crazy. Maybe it hit to close to home.

[Peptuck]

Well, River's batshit in a very sympathetic way. This person is just.....disturbing.

[Ohma]

I'll echo Zix. You don't end up with a mentality where sex with men = rape without either being insular to the point where you have little to no experience with men or women in real life, or you have had a lot of bad shit happen to you.

I hope the writer of that blog gets psychiatric help, because they can't be very happy.

[DPDarkPrimus]

I'll echo Zix. You don't end up with a mentality where sex with men = rape without either being insular to the point where you have little to no experience with men or women in real life, or you have had a lot of bad shit happen to you.

I hope the writer of that blog gets psychiatric help, because they can't be very happy.

What, and have her be brainwashed into being a man slave?

[CaptainChewbacca]

This woman also think Joss is an abusive man and beats/rapes his wife regularly. No evidence for this assertion is offered, its just her hunch.

[Darth Raptor]

Whenever I encounter the psychotic ravings of a radical feminist, my first thought is invariably "someone needs a good fucking!". Immediately, always and without fail, that's what goes through my mind when I read something like this.

Am I a bad person?

[Peptuck]

Reading through that entire post, I find it hilarious that she automatically believes Wash is an abusive, dominating man entirely because he's in an interracial relationship, and this is based entirely on her own experiences regarding interracial marriages - completely ignoring everything in the show that says Wash and Zoe are in a healthy relationship.

[Axiomatic]

Whenever I encounter the psychotic ravings of a radical feminist, my first thought is invariably "someone needs a good fucking!". Immediately, always and without fail, that's what goes through my mind when I read something like this.

Am I a bad person?

Yes.

But they're worse.

[Junghalli]

I've never watched Firefly but offhand I love how she just assumes that if Inara is emotionally supportive of a man it's because that's part of her job and she should be getting payed for this service. It can't possibly be genuine friendship or empathy. The only reason she could be emotionally supportive of a male character is because it's in her job description.

God does that speak volumes about the author's own mental state.

[Andrew_Fireborn]

The comments are of the standard praising circle jerk variety too...

The one person she "allowed" to make a point, she immediately said afterward that she wouldn't allow any more along that line to be made. Gotta love the old Cult of the Vagina. (Not that men who worship their crotches are any better...)

And her so called next installment is going to be over 'Our Mrs. Reynolds'... So much for never recovering from the shock.

[Andrew_Fireborn]

Ghet-edit:

She actually comes right out and says it in one of the comments.

I believe in the radical feminist definition of rape. That is that men who pressure women into sex are rapists. That women who are pressured are not freely consenting and are therefore being raped. There have been a few discussions recently in the rad fem blogosphere debating whether all male initiated sex is rape, given that women are politically, socially and economically subordinate to men. So, in my understanding of Joss Whedon as a rapist is hinges on my definition of rape. I would argue that most 'sex' between men and women, in the contemporary 'sex-positive', pornographic, male-supremacist culture, is rape.