time for more TV in class

[cabell]

If you were going to show an episode of Firefly specifically to talk about race, which one would you choose?

I'm leaning towards "Objects in Space" because of the Operative, but I don't know if it's the best one to use.

Comments

[lerite]

I've always found the gender stuff in Firefly more interesting than race--although all black people being super hardcore ninjas is pretty funny--also Jubal Early and the Operative are different people.

The weird part is that the two civilizations that survived were supposedly American and Chinese, so people speak English with Chinese words. But there are practically no Asian characters anywhere in the show. Huh?

Phantom Menace has more racial stereotypes than you can shake a stick at. I think it's my favorite bad-bad sci-fi (as opposed to good-bad sci-fi, like Season 1 B5).

[cabell]

Argh, I always mix them up--I know they're different characters but I forget who is who. Thanks.

And yeah, the absence of Asians when they're supposed to be now, if anything, the DOMINANT group, is a nice example of fetishizing the culture but refusing to actually represent the people. It reminds me of a Japanese sci fi novel in which Japan sinks into the ocean and all the foreign governments want to take cultural treasures but not refugees. I mean, if anyone should be Asian on this show, it's Simon & River--but they're not.

[philiptan]

"The Sinking of Japan" is actually a terrific disaster movie. Totally formulaic and hammy, but lots of good effects, melodrama, and timely deaths for sympathetic extras.

[revena]

I'd probably go with "Safe," off the top of my head. I think there's some stuff worth talking about in the Tam parents being white, and in the makeup of the little moon the crew lands on, particularly the isolated "hill folk" community.

[lerite]

Ooh! Yes. I'd forgotten that woman.

[malaika02]

Yeah, that ONE black woman... it's easy to forget.

The Tam parents are white, but so is just about everyone else. I love Firefly, but racially diverse and progressive it is not.

[cabell]

Yeah, that's a good one. I'm trying to decide between it and Objects now.

[malaika02]

I'm not sure that Firefly provides any illuminations about race... as awesome as the show is, it is woefully lacking in the diversity department. For one thing, where are all the Asians? Everyone speaks bits of Chinese, but none of the main characters are Asian, and very few of the bit characters are either, besides the occasional dancing girl or villager.

Zoe and Wash's interracial marriage might be one thing to talk about, but I'm not sure we even see this manifest as a real discussion of race. They have issues over the military/civilian issue, but not race per se. I guess you could argue that Zoe is being portrayed as a more physical, aggressive, sexual person than Wash, which plays out some of our stereotypes about black people.

There's not a lot to work with there, though. I would pick something from Buffy or even better Angel- check out "The Thin Dead Line" in season 2.

[cabell]

I'm showing it BECAUSE the show is problematic--the missing Asians, as you note, are a major problem, as is the fact that Inara, the only member of the crew who shows any sign of having been socialized in a recognizably "Asian" way, is basically a space geisha. And yes, the Zoe issue is another one I want to highlight.

Buffy has lots of good stuff, too, but I wanted to use something futuristic to emphasize the inability of most media to really imagine a future that is significantly different from our present.

[malaika02]

In that case, you could look at either The Train Job or War Stories, where they came up with some random Eastern European accent for the bad guy. So predictable.

I'm trying to think if there's another futuristic show that does much better at this. Do you have one in mind?

[kicking_k]

There's at least one Asian girl in "Heart of Gold", as well...

[ex_hellocth126]

Like has been mentioned, unless you want to talk about the lack of Asians in an Asian-themed show, or about Book as the "magic Negro", I don't think Firefly is a very fertile show for race discussions.

If you've got the time to dig through a much larger catalog of episodes, Deep Space Nine would do you well. There's an episode in... Season 5 methinks... that specifically looks at race and gender issues in the 1930s publishing world. More generally, there's a whole lot you could do, I'd think, with the very standard Star Trek practice of using entire races to exemplify certain human traits. The show deals with issues of speciesism in a much less-trite way that Star Trek usually does, which could probably provide good discussions of race and gender issues in a contemporary setting.

[cabell]

See my reply above. You're right; Book is a good example of a Magical Negro, a topic I had them read up on. So for something that you describe as not "very fertile for race discussions," we've already got four separate issues (no Asians, space geisha, magical Negro, Zoe as aggressive Black woman). "Safe" actually offers some interesting class distinctions as well.

[mystickeeper]

I think it's neat that you're using Firefly to make people think about how race is(n't) represented in media. I know that I didn't realize the lack of Asian people (even while appreciating the Asian *aesthetics*) until it was pointed out to me, and I still feel ashamed of it. BUT, it has sharpened the way I analyze everything else I read and watch.

There's a book at the public library called "Finding Serenity," edited by Jane Espenson, that has various essays on Firefly, and I know that at least one of them deals with race. I'm not sure what kind of timeframe you're dealing with.