this post was submitted on 27 Apr 2025
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Firefly, for three reasons.
One, the "heroic" war veteran crew were basically US civil war Confederates.
Two, Whedon's sexpest behaviour during production.
Three, it cemented Whedonistic dialog into pop culture.
Four, they all speak Mandarin because of some historic cultural amalgamation, but there's not a single Asian person on the crew (or in the show that I can remember)
this one is so deeply strange to me, like they made it up it's not a real existing cultural appropriation so why would people so uncomfortable with chinese people choose for that to be the thing? they could've chosen other languages plausibly white or adjacent that'd still indicate the cosmopolitan space culture
My armchair analysis is that it's a common theme in futuristic space media to show that the Earth is much more united now that there are other worlds with which to fight, form tenuous alliances, etc. China is the biggest, most distant Other, so merging them into the American melting pot in your lore is the strongest way to make that point.
If two political bodies that were once very distinct in the past are now just provinces in a single nation, the cheapest way to extend that pattern into the future is to do what they did. It's a bit cliché but I wouldn't consider it the worst writing sin in the world if they had just made the characters and casting reflect that.
Side note: across Firefly and Dollhouse, there aren't that many black characters either, and a uncomfortably large proportion of them are villains.
i think it might have taken the place of 80s media being all "everything is going to be Japanese" after Japan's bubble burst and the PRC was (more visibly) on the rise
I feel like The Avengers is more responsible for cementing it into culture, but yeah, I have no desire to revisit Firefly despite liking it when I first watched it.
Aaaaa
Does that mean quipless dialogue is anwhedonic?
What?
In the audio commentary of the pilot episode (it's been 10,000 years so might be a different episode) Whedon talks about the war being space US Civil War and Mal is inspired by the confederate soldiers who went west after the war because the inner planets = manufacturing power and center of government like the north, and outer planets = agrarians who are having their 'rights' trampled like the south. Obviously it's a prime time show from 2001 written entirely by white people so there's no discussion of slavery, the closest it gets is one episode does feature an outer planet guy who 'owns' people via their debts to him
I'll be damned
There's a whole lot of dogwhistle language that "Confederate history buffs" would recognize. For example, how Mal occasionally talks about his side rising again.
I think that's less dogwhistle and more Whedon is just a bit stupid. It's very bog standard evil sleek shiny empire vs. ragtag bunch of loveable misfits, more in line with Star Wars. The entire crew is way too progressive, excluding Jayne who is explicitly the asshole, for them to be reactionary US confederates.