Big Damn Hero Show

[tardis_stowaway]

I just saw The Secret of Kells at my local indie movie theater, and I highly recommend it.  The visuals were absolutely stunning.  Some sequences felt like being dropped into an illuminated manuscript.  The story was simple but heartfelt, and I really appreciated the reverence for books.  Now, on to the TV meme!  I'm making no attempt to catch up with a double header today.

Thirty Days of TV Meme, Day 8:  A show everyone should watch

While DW is my personal favorite show, I've found that reactions from my RL friends tend to be a bit mixed.  I've concluded that it's not for everybody.  *shrug*  Humans are weird.

However, I can say with confidence that everybody in the 'verse should watch Firefly.  If you are somehow reading this journal and have not seen it yet, please proceed immediately to netflix, a local business from which you can rent or purchase dvds, or other source.  Watch the whole series, then come and thank me.  Those of you who are familiar with Firefly are probably nodding in agreement by now. 

For previous fans who wish to share in the squee or future fans who need a little persuading, I shall elaborate.  Firefly's got some of the funniest, most quotable lines around (even the theme song is quotable, for crying out loud), but it's not just a collection of one-liners and banter.  The character-driven writing gives the brilliant ensemble cast plenty of chances to shine. The setting – human colonies in space with a Western/frontier vibe plus Chinese cultural influence – is creative and beautifully brought to life.  The ship looks and feels like a home inhabited by people operating on the margins of society.  This show was cut down after only 11 aired episodes (plus three unaired episodes on the DVD and the following movie), but every single one of those episodes is great television, and it was getting better as it went along.  Its early demise is one of the greatest mysteries and tragedies of recent television history.  On the plus side, that's a very short time commitment for those wanting to watch or rewatch. 

Firefly is so awesome that actual astronauts have taken the DVD into space. (Astronaut fans surely appreciate the fact that Firefly has relatively solid science for TV science fiction.  There's no sound in space!)  It inspires such loyalty in fans that they persuaded the powers that be to make a movie.  Even people who don't much care for Joss Whedon's other shows tend to enjoy Firefly.  So, go forth and watch it.  Bring your friends.  Bring your family.  Bring your plastic dinosaurs.



Comments

[reverendjmg.livejournal.com]

::nods in agreement::

[skalja.livejournal.com]

Okay, first of all, I really want to emphasize that 1) I agree with 99% of this post, and 2) my discussion of the 1% I disagree with is meant as a criticism of a show I otherwise love, and to a lesser extent the potential problems with meme wording, and not a criticism of you or your opinion of the show. And if you feel my wording comes off otherwise, please let me know so I can fix it!

Anyway, I love, love, love Firefly to bits, but this bit leaped out at me:

The setting – human colonies in space with a Western/frontier vibe plus Chinese cultural influence – is creative and beautifully brought to life.

In principle I agree - acknowledgment that future!culture might draw from more than Western traditions is pretty rare, and I love that Whedon thought to do that. In practice, though, I find it very troubling that Chinese and other Asian cultural influences are used for worldbuilding, but there are no visibly (see below) Asian main characters and very few Asian background characters, if any.

(I think the Tams are meant to have Asian ancestry, given their surname, but they're all played by white/white-passing actors. As a white-passing biracial Asian/Caucasian I like this in the abstract, but don't consider it an acceptable substitute for having people who are visibly of Asian ancestry play important roles on a show whose universe is very obviously heavily influenced by Asian cultures.)

This wasn't a deal-breaker for me, but it has been for a number of people that I'm aware of. I know you're working with pre-existing wording of a meme, but the phrasing "Firefly is for everyone" bothers me, even though I myself adore the show. I think it glosses over the very legitimate reasons people can have for not wanting to watch a show rife with cultural appropriation -- which very likely is a reflection/magnification of the cultural appropriation going on in their own lives.

If "Firefly is for everyone," then that implies that anyone who has a problem with Firefly is a weird outlier, and not that there's a legitimate problem with the show -- does that make sense?

Anyway teal deer Firefly rocks (mostly); cultural appropriation sucks.

[tardis-stowaway.livejournal.com]

Thanks for pointing out my carelessness here. The mysterious lack of Asian characters in FF is something that bothers me too, but unfortunately when I get excited about discussing why I love Firefly, the problematic cultural appropriation tends to recede toward the back of my mind. White privilege makes me dumb.

I confess that I've never talked to anyone for whom the lack of Asian characters is a total dealbreaker as opposed to a source of frustration and/or anger about a show that is still enjoyable in other respects. However, clearly they exist, and I don't want to imply that this is a wrong or overly sensitive way to feel! The problem is genuine, and it's fair for some people to decide that it's more than they're willing to overlook.

As you say, the meme wording is inherently flawed. "A show everyone should watch" really doesn't exist. (For instance, I was already assuming the exclusion of young children from "everyone" due to Firefly's amount of violence and moral ambiguity from the main characters.) A more accurate wording is that of the shows I have seen, Firefly can potentially bring the greatest joy to the greatest number and variety of people.

[skalja.livejournal.com]

Thanks for listening. And I agree with both your alternate meme wording and that Firefly applies to such. :)

[braidsofdeath.livejournal.com]

My brother, who is not a science fiction fan generally, loved Firefly. I brought my DVD set home at christmas at some point, and he watched the entire thing in a very short amount of time. He even managed to enjoy it despite watching it completely out of order (not even the out of order it was shown on TV in, he just started with a random DVD and continued from there. Apparently it was too hard to look at the numbers on the DVD cases?)