July 2005 – Page 7 – Priscilla Spencer

Estonians snatch world wife-carrying title again

Speaking of humorously antiquated gender roles, I’ve been reading Finding Serenity, and WOW, the article on chivalry simultaneously cracks me up (though not in the way the author intended) and makes me want to hit the writer with a large bat. Jane Espenson was wise to follow it up with the fluffy “Our show could kick your show’s scrawny uniformed backside” humor piece, comparing Firefly to Enterprise, to ease our strangle hold on the couch cushion. It makes me want to go back and read the Zoe essay on “Updating the Woman Warrior”, to purge my mind of Wright’s frankly chauvanistic drivel.

It’s as if he faults Wash for not being as fierce a fighter as Zoe, and undermines Simon’s sacrifices for River. It’s as if he faults Joss for having strong female characters that don’t necessarily need the sexist level of “protection” from men present in Medieval times and in old Westerns, or men that occasionally act selfishly. Furthermore, he appears to have missed the entire point of Shindig. It showed that Mal has a great amount of respect for Inara and explains away his use of the word “whore”, but without diminishing Inara in the process. To have Inara playing the damsel in distress would be demeaning to her and undermine the level of power Companions are trained to command. If you expect Western-style Chivalry, where the woman must be in a position of weakness, you’re not going to find it here.

I wanted to scream when I read this:

In the episode “War Stories,” in which the pilot Wash argues with his wife and insists on going on a dangerous mission in her place, nothing is made of the fact that this act saves her from kidnap and torture: the portrayal makes Wash’s behavior seem petulant rather than heroic, as if there is something wrong with a husband trying to safeguard his own wife.

There’s nothing wrong with a husband trying to safeguard his own wife. Indeed, every time he pulls off some spectacular new feat of piloting, he’s safeguarding his wife as well as his entire crew. But I’ve got news for you. In that scene, he was being petulant rather than heroic. He was feeling inadequate and “out of the loop”, and he wanted to prove that he could be as strong as Zoe in the thieving department. “Dangerous mission”? Mal makes a point of how “this is a milk run”, stressing that this was the only reason he let Wash get away with it. Stop turning my realistic, lovable, flawed, three-dimensional characters into boring, “selfless” chauvantists!

Later in the episode, he has the chance to perform the extraordinary, and he does. After withstanding hours of horrifically sadistic torture, where most men would fail, he finds the strength within himself to keep going, and convinces Zoe to join him on a mission to get Mal back. He has been at the volcano’s edge, and we meet the real man, and he’s someone you don’t want to cross. Wash proves to be truly heroic, but apparently that’s not good enough for John C. Wright, because Mal isn’t a girl.

And I’m going to stop ranting here, because it’s silly and not really worth my time or frustration.