A Rapist's View of the World: Joss Whedon and Firefly

[Berin Kinsman]

Something that will always be entertaining to me is when someone starts off with a valid point or two, then takes it to extremes so ridiculous as to invalidate their own credibility and turns their argument into a hilarious if unintended self-parody. These are generally people who go out of their way looking for things to be offended by.

For example, the following LJ post arguing that Firefly is all about rape:
http://users.livejournal.com/_allecto_/34718.html

I see a few valid points in there. I also see a lot of gross generalizations and serious effort to find things to get righteously upset over. Again, I see the points the writer's trying to make; it's the hyperbole that makes me laugh out loud.

"I really am beyond worried about how much men hate us, given that this was written by a man who calls himself a feminist."

Gosh, I liked Firefly, I must hate women.

I find much of Joss Whedon’s work to be heavily influenced by pornography, and pornographic humour.

Buh?

Firefly takes mysogeny to a new level of terrifying

Wow, if they'd pitched it to FOX that way they might have put effort into keeping the series alive. Makes a great tagline, doesn't it? I can see that quote on the back of a DVD box.

Only one episode was written by a woman. It was no better or worse in its depiction of women than the ones written by men.

Jane Espenson hates women! Who knew?

This goes on and on... and on... and on. This person counts how many lines women have, as opposed to how many lines men have. Seriously. This person is offended that Zoe, a black woman, takes orders from Mal, a white male. Because, you know, in the future people can't follow other people on merit or anything.

Read it. Or not.

[Cameron Goble]

And thus, the main reason why I happily laughed my way out of college the nanosecond I got my degree. Most of my classes -- especially the later years -- were cludged full of tripe like this.

It's a shame, because the analytic tools they use to arrive at such ludicrous conclusions are actually powerful. (I agree with one of the respondents from the post, though: that was a lazy, superficial interpretation at best.) I got some good cheese with such tools out of films I'd never considered watching before. Texts I knew backward and forward took on rich, new meanings.

Most of the required readings for the classes tended to focus on using one tools exclusively, though, and the teachers & students would follow suit. When the only tool you have is Fruedianism, everything around you starts looking like a cigar.

I think the major error in this kind of textual analysis is that it conflates the complex, imperfect set of relationships between characters with a proletariat-directed message of affirmation from the source of production: "this is how life should be," says the producer, "and I want you to follow it." Both liberal and conservative crackpots make this mistake all the time.

Life is often contradictory, especially when the human element comes into play. A feminist can write a story that does not promote feminist goals, but does feature the interplay of feminist messages in a human setting. Thus, Joss Whedon. He passed the point that feminism ends and delved into the even more swirly realm of humanism, with all its flaws and foibles.

[Berin Kinsman]

What he said.

[Cameron Goble]

All that, and I wrote it before breakfast.

Five more impossible things to go.

[Lon Sarver]

Yeah. That.

[Deidzoeb]

Re: classes using exclusive interpretive tools. I had a children's lit class which ran us through a wringer of various perspectives of interpretation: Freudian, Marxist, feminist, post-structuralist, others I'm forgetting. I wrote a paper on "Psychiatric Help 5 cents: Jungian archetypes applied to Charlie Brown and Peanuts", basically using leftover knowledge from a psych class where we had to do a project on Jung. I tried to make it clear from the subtitle that I was applying this perspective to the comics, not "finding" them or illuminating something that Schulz must have intended.

For all it's worth, I think that children's lit prof conveyed the kind of message about interpretation that you seem to be laying out. It's okay for us to interpret things in lots of ways, but we shouldn't confuse that with some canonical Official Meaning which the author or artist intended. We shouldn't claim that there is only one valid interpretation of a work. It doesn't mean all interpretations are equally brilliant, but they succeed or fail on their own evidence. This "Rapist's view" is full of fail.

I mean, it's one thing to say that "I tripped over a purple dog toy when I was four and broke my nose, so I personally interpret Harold's purple crayon as a story of pain and suffering." But to say everyone should interpret Harold's Purple Crayon based on your unusual experience, as this ranter says at some points, it just doesn't work.

[Hypnoangel]

I'd love to read your Peanuts essay.

[Deidzoeb]

If I can find it, I'll post it on my blog and drop a link here. Thought I posted it years ago, but I can't find it now. However, here's an article that might be entertaining: The Tao of Pooh vs. The AAUGH! of Brown.

[Golgotha Kinslayer]

That essay should come with a disclaimer. I almost choked to death on blueberries when encountering this line: "How would Pooh react if Piglet started selling his Very Small Body to pay for his Very Small But Growing Smack Habit?"

I'm curious as to what 'Danny' would think about Peanuts or Pooh when placed in that context. It could be a fun game: send her links to stuff geared to get her on another 'Joss is a rapist' rant for our amusement.

[Cameron Goble]

Any luck finding it, Deidzoeb? I'd love to read it too.

[Deidzoeb]

Nah, I thought it was saved to my computer, but it must be buried in a box of hardcopy somewhere. I'll take a look when I get home tonight. Hope it'll be worth the wait.

[Berin Kinsman]

I think I've hit upon what really, really bugs me about the writer's point of view: it absolves women (womyn? Or should it be womxn, removing the y-as-in-y-chromosome and replacing it with x-as-in-x-chromosome but pronouncing the x as if it were y to demonstrate that x and y are equal?) it absolves women of all responsibility for their decisions and makes everything the fault of male-dominated society. No woman, ever, has any responsibility or choice in taking up a life of prostitution. No woman, ever, under any circumstances, would willingly choose to be led by a male. Thus all women are powerless, brainless, spineless dupes of the male-dominated society.

I find that to be incredibly demeaning.

[Hank Harwell]

Bear for the win