Can we discuss, for a moment, Joss Whedon’s obsession with disturbed brunettes who wander around barefoot? I’m not actually asking for permission here, that’s a rhetorical question which is designed to establish the theme of this post, which is, as you may have guessed, Whedon’s obsession with disturbed brunettes who wander around barefoot.

It really does bear examining, because various permutations of the exact same character show up again and again in his work. And I think that tells us something about Joss, that he can’t seem to produce a creative work without this character. He inserts her again and again, setting up situations in which she can be saved, but in the end, she’s often doomed despite the best efforts of the other (usually male) characters.

The classic example of this character is, of course, River Tam on Firefly. We are introduced to her in a state of total vulnerability, naked and unconscious inside a transport capsule. As the series progresses, River seems almost more like set dressing than anything else. She creeps around, barefoot, of course. She mystifies and puzzles the other characters. Sometimes she shrieks in the night, mutters strings of gibberish.

She’s the Damaged Girl, and the other characters become intensely invested in her and highly protective of her, with Simon and Mal in particular being River’s champions and defenders. River Tam almost seems like the class pet more than anything else, but of course she also carries a whiff of danger, which is another aspect of the disturbed brunette theme. It’s not enough that the Disturbed Brunette be fragile and dependent on others, she must also be unstable, and that instability must reveal tremendous danger.

This is seen perhaps most spectacularly with Drusilla, whom we see on Buffy and Angel. Drusilla, of course, was driven into a very strange mental state by Angelus, who wanted to exploit her visions for his own purposes. She is, like all the brunettes, ethereal. Pale. Thin. Mysterious. She has an imperfect grasp of reality. Like the other brunettes, she floats instead of walking, unnerves other characters, even her friends, and sometimes speaks in riddles and rhymes.

Deadly, yet patronized by the characters around her, with other characters jumping in to protect her. This is really underscored in the scenes in which we see her playing with dollies, which are supposed to emphasize how “childlike” she is, as she murmurs to herself and cries to Spike because her birdie died. Spike literally calls her “pet,” emphasizing how disdainfully he views her, but Drusilla is in fact quite a deadly pet indeed. She is shown, on numerous occasions, to be incredibly lethal.

The Brunette appears again in Angel, when Fred is rescued from Pylea. Again, a theme; she’s shy, withdrawn, thin, and unstable. Other characters need to protect her, even as they are sexually attracted to her. She is, like the other Brunettes, neuroatypical and she’s depicted as incredibly fragile and in need of rescuing and protection, being pathetically grateful towards her rescuers, Gunn, Angel, and Wesley.

Fred’s also dangerous, as proved when she uses her innovative skills to evade Wesley and Gunn in “Billy.” Like the other Brunettes, it seems that despite her apparent fragility, she is able to muster up deep instincts from within to defend herself when the time comes before subsiding back into her state of enforced helplessness.

Tara, in Buffy, is another example of this recurrent character, who breaks out of the mold a bit by having primarily female protectors in the form of Willow and Buffy. (And, of course, Tara is dirty blonde, not brunette.) The other characters feel the need to protect her even while bringing her out of her shell. Most irritatingly of all, in “Tough Love” (Season Five), Tara is attacked by Glory, and brought to a state of total helplessness because Glory sucked her mind out. We are treated to a number of painful scenes in which characters care for the now-disabled Tara, spoonfeeding her applesauce and trying to calm her shrieks and  mumblings. I don’t want to get into Joss Whedon and disability at this particular moment, but suffice it to say that Whedon’s treatment of disability is hardly enlightened, and the brunettes play heavily into that treatment, because all of them inhabit troped characterizations of mental illness.

Dollhouse features several of the brunettes, including a number of imprints which fit the brunette theme. Caroline and Whiskey both appear to be very troubled women who may experience mental illness on some level, and both of them are reduced to a state of profound helplessness in the Dollhouse. A state which also carries an edge of danger, of course. And look, Caroline has Ballard to rescue her, while Whiskey’s got Boyd Langton.

And what happens to all of these women?

River is abducted and must be rescued in Serenity. Underscoring the fact that she is fragile and helpless and needs the men to save her (even though she also holds back a pack of Reavers singlehanded at the end, go figure). Drusilla is allowed to remain at large, but we are repeatedly reminded that she suffers without having a protector around, whether it’s Spike, Darla, or someone else. Fred dies, with her body being overtaken by Illyria. Though Illyria is blue and a goddess, she’s got a bit of the brunette thing going on herself; strange, isolated, sad, and in need of guardians and protectors to  help her navigate the world. Tara, of course, is murdered at the end of season six. Caroline’s story is still unfolding, and the last we saw of Whiskey in this season of Dollhouse, she was fleeing the Dollhouse after being confronted with the truth about her identity. (She also appears in “Epitaph One,” of course, but I don’t want to get into her characterization there because I know that not all of you have seen that episode.)

This recurring character perturbs me. I don’t like that the brunettes all seem to need to be rescued. I don’t like that they are all clearly mentally ill, and depicted in a way which I think is rather damaging for women with mental illness. They don’t need treatment, or an acknowledgment of what is happening in their brains, they just need some men around to protect and help them! They may be mentally ill and fragile and damaged, but watch out, they are also deadly and dangerous! And, in the end, they will all suffer because of who they are; they are not allowed to live rich, independent, happy lives.

It could be said that this is true of many of Whedon’s characters. Few of them get to live independent, happy lives, and thus it’s not that surprising that, in a small sampling of Whedonverse characters, none of them are really happy. But to see the same character coming up and facing the same things again and again says something. Something troubling.

The fact that many of these characters are also very popular also, in my opinion, says something troubling. It tells me that people feel interested in, engaged with, and attached to these characters. That some fans, perhaps, imagine themselves in the positions of the ones doing the saving, and maybe some fans imagine themselves being saved. There’s a reason that characters like Bella in the Twilight Saga are so compelling; it’s because many of us fantasize, to some degree or another, about being helpless and being rescued by someone big and strong who will make all our worries go away, or about being the rescuer. The brunettes are a realization of this.

Is Whedon projecting himself into the role of the saviour? I think he might be. Will he ever be able to tell a story without a disturbed brunette? Only time will tell.

ETA: Thanks to the flood of misogynist and ableist comments I’ve gotten on this post, I am closing comments. Sorry to all of you who actually wanted to engage and discuss, but I just cannot. Deal with this. Right now. I may reopen comments in the future. (Note: This is not an invitation to email me, leave comments on other posts, or otherwise harass me. My brainmeats are not in a good space right now and I really cannot engage/deal at the moment.)

(The earlier entries in this series are “Is Joss Whedon a Feminist? The Women of Firefly/Serenity,” “Is Joss Whedon a Feminist? Buffy and Female Empowerment,” and “Joss Whedon and Feminism: The Demon Women and Slayers of Buffy.” They are not required reading, although please note that these posts are very, very, very long, so you may want to set aside some time to read/digest them if you’re interested in the topic.)

Now that we’ve had a chance to explore some of the women of the Whedonverse, I wanted to talk about some of Joss Whedon’s most memorable misogynist villains. These villains are something which really sets Joss aside from a lot of other people working in television, because he confronts viewers with very real examples of anti-feminist villainy. I can’t think of a lot of other examples of shows in which villains are explicitly misogynist, and in which their misogyny becomes a critical aspect of their characterization and eventual fate.

In Buffy the Vampire Slayer, you have Caleb (season seven) and Warren (season six), part of the overall turn towards darkness which occurs over the course of the series as our characters mature and the story matures with them. Angel also has a very chilling cameo with Billy (season three), and Firefly features its very own misogynist, Rance Burgess, in “Heart of Gold.” Hearn, in Dollhouse, is another woman-hating character (within the context of a larger organization which is deeply troubling from a feminist perspective). All of these characters are very different, and while they may occur in fantasy/science fiction contexts, they are also chillingly real.

When Whedon introduced Warren (“I Was Made to Love You,” season 5), he was initially a fairly minor character. He builds a sex robot, which we see as rather repulsive, especially since he abandons her and leaves her to run down, rather than addressing his issues with her. But, as it turns out, there’s a lot more to Warren than meets the eye, and our initial decision to write him off as a minor geek turns out to be a fatal mistake.

Warren forms part of the Trio, a group which explicitly wants to bring Buffy down. The Trio’s antics are amusing at first, and they steadily grow more sinister, culminating with the very creepy “Dead Things” (season six), in which Warren enchants his former girlfriend to turn her into a sex slave, and when she attempts to break free, she is killed. It is at this point that we understand that the Trio has taken a very dire tack, and we start to take them seriously as enemies as Warren frames Buffy for the murder and has a generally callous attitude, viewing Katrina as an object without meaning or intrinsic value.

Warren is also, of course, the architect of the Buffybot, the robotic version of Buffy which Spike orders from him in the fifth season. The Buffybot is a disturbing manifestation of Spike’s obsession with Buffy, and of the idea that a living, breathing woman whom we know and are familiar with could be turned into a robotic version which could be programmed (hello, Dollhouse) to do exactly what the controller desires. The ultimate misogynist fantasy.

He travels down a darker and darker path, ultimately being foiled by Buffy and storming to her house to shoot her. Buffy doesn’t die, but Willow’s girlfriend Tara does, propelling her into a murderous rage. Whedon gives us our first taste of vicious and truly horrific revenge when Willow flays Warren alive after tormenting him; it’s an uncomfortable scene, because it shows us that Willow’s magic is totally out of control, and we want to be horrified, but some of us are also secretly congratulating her for meting out such a harsh and apropos punishment.

One of the things about the characterization of Warren that intrigues me is that it touches on misogyny in the geek community. Now, I know lots of feminist geeks, but I also know a fair number of geeks, male and female, who have very antifeminist attitudes, and these attitudes are regularly reinforced in media aimed at geeks which features heavy objectification and vilification of women. I think that Whedon really highlighted a major issue here, which is that people tend to ignore geeks at their own peril, and that there is a lot of tolerance for antifeminist (and racism, though not brought up in Buffy) within the geek community.

Caleb debuts in “Dirty Girls,” and we know right from the start that he is Bad News Bears. Giving a young girl a ride, he gives off an entirely creepy vibe, heavily tinged with religious overtones (his priest’s collar adds a note of disturbance to the scene) which culminates with a violent attack on the girl. The scene sums up the use of religion to oppress women, and the very real core of violence which underlies a lot of hatred of women; in that scene with Caleb, you see the active desire of many people to punish women simply for being women.

He is actually trained as a priest, although we learn that he has been defrocked, and he also has a past as a serial killer. He is also closely interconnected with the First Evil, even going so far as to actively fuse with it in a strangely sexual scene. Caleb controls the Bringers, shaping the events of season seven long before we meet him, and he commands tremendous power; he’s a great allegory for misogynists who take advantage of structural systems to reinforce their will and subjugate women.

His end is also uniquely feminist and quite graphic. First, Buffy attempts to counter him and makes a fatal tactical mistake which costs the lives of several Slayers, along with Xander’s eye. This becomes the catalyst for the overthrow of Buffy, who later rejoins the team, steals the Scythe from Caleb, and cuts Caleb in half. From the groin up. If that’s not a powerful metaphor, I don’t know what is.

Caleb spends much of his time on screen mocking and belittling Buffy, and assuming that she is largely powerless. He discounts her power as a woman and as a Slayer, failing to understand the implications of her theft of the Scythe, and he pays a price for it. While Caleb may be infused with supernatural power, there’s a lot of about him which reminds viewers of real-world people who treat women as worthless objects which can be safely ignored.

The deaths of both Warren and Caleb are necessary within the context of Buffy because this is how she defeats her enemies, but they are also more layered than that. Both are actual human beings, in a marked contrast with her enemies in early seasons, and this really underscores the fact that the show is growing darker and more complex. From believing that no human killing is justified, Buffy goes to realizing that sometimes it is necessary in order to conquer sheer, unadulterated evil. And the only reason that we buy and accept these extremely violent deaths is that these characters are both rabid misogynists, going against everything that Buffy is, and thereby we find it personally redeeming, as viewers, to see them cut down so savagely.

Billy, introduced in “That Vision Thing” (Angel season three) is a relatively minor character, but also an important one. He’s also a standout in a show which is pretty antifeminist in a lot of ways.

We are initially introduced to him as someone who is trapped in a hell dimension. We assume he can’t be all good, because Wolfram and Hart manipulates Angel into rescuing him, but we also can’t imagine what circumstances would make someone deserve such a fate. We learn why a few episodes later in “Billy,” when characters begin to develop violent attitudes toward women after coming into contact with Billy. As it turns out, he can literally infect people with misogyny. Angel remains relatively unaffected, but the gentle and loving Gunn and Wesley turn into woman-hating monsters who attack Fred in the hotel.

The women of the series rise to save the day. We have Lilah Morgan viciously attacked by Billy, and at first insisting that he cannot be tracked and taken into custody because of political issues, and ultimately pursuing and shooting him as Cordelia goads her into fighting back. Cordelia also helps to track down and fight Billy, aided by the fighting skills she has started to acquire, while Fred develops ingenious ways to fend off Gunn and Wesley without actively hurting them, as she realizes that their mania must be temporary.

This episode raises a lot of issues. It points out that misogynistic attitudes often are contagious, even if they aren’t literally so. People are shaped by the people and media around them, and many people do learn to hate, fear, and resent women from others, just like people were infected by Billy’s hatred. Wesley in particular struggles with the discovery that he has the capacity for such violence and hatred within him, even as Fred assures him that what he did wasn’t really a part of him. In fact, Wesley is so broken by the incident that he experiences a form of life crisis, and is heard crying as he struggles to reconcile his experiences; tears are generally viewed as something which takes away from masculinity, underscoring Wesley’s struggles with his gender and the harsh reality of being male.

Rance Burgess is another relatively minor character who carries serious implications. In “Heart of Gold,” we learn that he is tormenting the occupants of a brothel, trying to gain control of a pregnant whore who is believed to be carrying his child. He will stop at nothing, treating the women as his property, until Mal and the gang swoop in to save the day. He organizes a defense of the brothel, while the pregnant woman gives birth, and of course one of the women of the brothel (Whedon’s obligatory Duplicitous Woman) sells out and sneaks Burgess into the building to steal the child.

But while Mal may organize the response to the threat, Whedon ultimately allows a woman to have the coup de grace. Mal drags Burgess back to the brothel, and allows the baby’s mother to shoot him. It’s another scene of violent vengeance, with viewers being worked up by Burgess’ abusive and violent treatment of women, and the deaths of some of the occupants of the brothel as Burgess’ men attack it. And it seems wholly appropriate that the woman who fought for custody and control of her child should be the one who decides what to do with Burgess, and decides to shoot him.

Many of Whedon’s misogynist characters give the women of his shows a chance to assert themselves, and to mete out justice, no matter how simplistic it is. Their characters and deaths are crude, violent, and awful, but Whedon doesn’t necessarily shove them in the faces of the viewers. Instead, they arise naturally within the context of the series they appear in, not feeling forced at all. It’s a great way to create positive feminist television without shoving feminism in the face of the viewers, although it does kind of go against Whedon’s theme that everyone is capable of redemption, by suggesting that some people really are so dreadful that they should just go away.

Hearn is a bit of an exception to the rule, because his character does not contribute to female empowerment, although he is definitely antifeminist, and that makes his depiction interesting for me, as a feminist watching Dollhouse. As Sierra’s handler, he sexually abuses and rapes her repeatedly (“Man on the Street”), justifying his actions within the larger context of the Dollhouse. As viewers, of course, we disagree and believe that what he is doing is definitely wrong.

But because the women of the show, including his victim, are disempowered, Hearn is actually punished by Boyd, the big strong male hero. Sierra’s rape, as I have dicussed elsewhere, sets up an interesting question and dichotomy in the show, as viewers learn that it is horrific and wrong, but the question of what happens to the Actives when they are on engagements is left in the air. We have Sierra’s rape confronting us and making us uncomfortable as viewers, but the same sour taste is not present in scenes where we see the actives engaged in sexual behavior.

Most tragically, Sierra’s memory of the abuse is wiped away afterwards. It’s the ultimate in disempowerment: she is sexually abused and used, and she isn’t even allowed to retain the memory of the event. In a way, the writers of the story are the misogynist villains, because they are the ones who are making the choice to disempower the characters and deny their experiences.

And this makes me curious to see Dollhouse in the coming season, because I want to see how the writers react to the criticism of the show, and how/if the characters have a chance to grow and mature into their own  beings with the capability of fighting back, defending themselves, and overcoming the system in which they are trapped.

Part one in an ongoing, and probably protracted, series.

I ask this question because I am legitimately looking for an answer: is Joss Whedon’s work feminist? He calls himself a feminist, and many other people do, but others have raised some very valid critiques of the way in which Joss handles female characters, and whether or not he could really appropriately be called a feminist. I would argue that his shows have shown a lot of facets of human experience, but that the overall treatment of women is problematic at times, and it bears some exploration.

Firefly/Serenity take place in the 26th century, after humans have effectively destroyed Earth and set out across the universe in search of new homes. Using terraforming technology, they create an array of planets to settle, and ultimately a civil war develops as people struggle for control. The victor is the Alliance, a fused Federal government made from the remains of the American and Chinese governments which settles the core of the ‘verse, and the losers are the Browncoats, rebels who struggle to eke out a living on the fringes, usually through smuggling, piracy, and other unsavory means. The show follows the crew and passengers of Serenity, a Firefly-class spaceship which travels the ‘verse looking for work.

The show and movie are often described as “a Western in space,” which aptly describes the style and feel. Firefly/Serenity are about rebels who are trying to find a way to live under a government they despise, and the gradual exposure of the serious problems and issues with the Alliance. While the characters are criminals, they are also heroes, triumphing against sometimes extraordinary odds and the monolithic Alliance.

In the world of Firefly, continued in Serenity, we are introduced to four main characters who are female: Zoe Washburne, Inara Serra, Kaylee Frye, and River Tam. Two other women, Saffron/Mrs. Reynolds/Bridget/Yolanda and Nandy, play minor but important roles in the series. Overall, the male/female balance is fairly even, but there is a glaring omission: in a futuristic world in which America and China have supposedly risen to equal power, there is not a single main character of Asian descent. Despite the rampant fetishistic chinoiserie which fills the sets with rich visual textures, Asians themselves are few and far between, let alone Asian women.

We see an array of personality types represented by the women of Firefly and Serenity, but there also a number of familiar and tiresome tropes. One of the most problematic issues in Firefly is the discussion surrounding Companions. Other authors have written excellent discussions about the role of prostitution in the ‘verse,  including Amy Chinn’s “”Tis a Pity She’s a Whore” (.pdf) and “starletharlot’s” essay “More Than Just a Whore: Sex Work, Firefly, and Audience Engagement.” As starletharlot points out, prostitutes in the ‘verse are divided into good (Inara) and bad (Nandy) whores: Companions, who are heavily controlled by a government agency and allowed to operate legally, and true whores, who work on the fringes of the ‘verse and lack regulation. While “Heart of Gold” would have us viewing illegal prostitutes as admirable rebels from within the framework of a show which glorifies piracy and other illegal activities, we are shown at the same time that their life is grim and dangerous because they reject the draconian regulations used to control Companions.

Inara herself seems to struggle with her life as a Companion, along with her unresolved feelings for Mal. This is presented as an either/or dichotomy, and it’s possible that we would have seen that sexual tension explored in more interesting ways and eventually resolved had the series been allowed to continue. As it is, we are left with the feeling that Inara can’t establish a relationship with Mal because she works as a Companion, which demonstrates a rather closed-minded view of how sex workers deal with relationships in the real world.

Nandy, the “bad” whore, is punished for her choices to start an independent house and enter a relationship with Mal. She may be a good businesswoman, a clever strategist, and an independent thinker, but from the moment she and Mal sleep together, viewers understand that she is doomed. Her death is a sobering warning to viewers: you can break outside the system, but only so far.

The two female crew members, Kaylee and Zoe, are presented as strong, powerful women, but they also have some serious flaws. Kaylee is shown to be generally frivolous, often not very bright, and obsessed with Simon Tam. She may be a genius with engines who is capable of showing up lesser male mechanics, but she’s also moody, sensitive, and pouty, demonstrating classic traits which are stereotypically ascribed to women. Zoe, while being a war veteran, independent thinker, and all-around bad ass, is also almost depressingly subservient to the Captain at times. While this is meant to be a reflection of their time together in military service, and the structure of military command, and she is just as apt to sass the Captain or call him “sir” with deep sarcasm, it’s still a classic division of sex roles in which the man’s in charge, and the woman follows. While Mal does make a natural leader, it would also have been nice to see examples of female Captains in the ‘verse.

“Shindig” shows us what I think is supposed to be the “feminine” side of Kaylee as she lusts after a frilly dress, and is mocked by women dressed in custom-made gowns at a party. Ultimately, she captivates male attention not with her feminine wiles, but with her knowledge of mechanics and engines, and she turns out to be a big hit. I think that the episode is supposed to show us that she struggles as a woman in a traditionally masculine field, and that she wants to be recognized as both a woman and a skilled mechanic, but instead the episode strikes a wrong note, and leaves a sour taste. After all, Kaylee does not prove herself by being a woman, she triumphs by being a mechanic, and at the same time, her character is used to quietly put down women who are obsessed with beauty, fashion, and belongings.

She longs for the ability to occasionally just be a girl, yet her character is used to show us that stereotypically feminine women should be scorned and disdained, which strikes me as a very anti-feminist attitude. Likewise, when Zoe attempts to do something classically feminine, such as cooking, she becomes the butt of jokes and amusement as viewers see that she is incapable and bumbling. In a way, she’s glorified and praised for being as ungirly as it is possible to imagine, which could be a repudiation of gender stereotypes, or a mockery of women who do choose to pursue activities which are traditionally feminine. Why can’t Zoe be a good XO and a good cook?

River Tam is also a deeply problematic character. She shares a lot of similarities with the Actives in Dollhouse, of course, which would suggest that Joss may be working through some unresolved issues of his own. She’s the idealized woman in many ways: graceful, fragile, classically Hollywood beautiful. But she’s also unpredictable and extremely dangerous, a metaphor for the violent mood swings women are supposedly subject to, and she feels almost like an object in many of the episodes, not a person.

A number of men find the character of River Tam very appealing. She’s conventionally sexy, with that hard edge of danger and violence which creates a whiff of mystique, but she’s also entirely controllable with the use of keywords which trigger unconsciousness. She’s preternatural and creepy and also somewhat childlike, and she’s a fundamentally broken person. River is the classic female character destroyed by forces beyond her control who is heavily dependent on a man to save and protect her, even though she is fully capable of doing so herself. How would we view the characters of Simon and River if their roles were reversed, and River was the capable (if somewhat spoiled) doctor, while Simon was the subject of mysterious government experiments which turned him into a fragile and emotionally unstable killing machine?

Saffron/Mrs. Reynolds/Yolanda/Bridget is also a very problematic character in many ways: the typical scheming woman who manipulates everyone around her, using them to achieve her own end goals and double crossing them once their usefulness is outlived. She is portrayed as someone who may have a form of mental illness, and in “Trash,” she is literally thrown away, with the characters suggesting that as a duplicitous woman, she met an appropriate end. Oddly enough, it’s another woman, Inara, who traps her in a trash bin and leaves her for collection by law enforcement so that she can learn a lesson and get her comeuppance for finding creative approaches to living in a masculine-dominated world.

One could look at the women of Firefly/Serenity as a wide array of characters with diverse experiences, and like many great characters in television, many of them are flawed and struggling with internal issues which viewers are not made privy to. But too many of them fall into classic stereotypes: the sidekick, the whore, the con artist. While few of the characters could be considered outright anti-feminist, overall, there are some distinctly questionable portrayals of women.

The systems within the ‘verse are also anti-female in many ways, which could be viewed as a commentary on the Alliance, and another reason for the merry band on board Serenity to buck the system. Companionship, for example, while theoretically open to men and women, is shown to viewers primarily in the form of female Companions, and it is a very oppressive system which exemplifies attitudes about whores vs courtesans, and the idea that there are “good” and “bad” prostitutes. Likewise, very few women are seen in power in the Alliance, or even in environments like the hospital. On these grounds, one could argue that life aboard ships like Serenity is very egalitarian, with women having more opportunities for advancement.

The distinction here is clear: the Alliance is oppressive, outdated, and hopelessly bureaucratic, while the Browncoats live a life which is difficult, but more free and open. This depiction is strongly reminiscent of the idealization of poverty in many books, in which poor and disenfranchised characters are glamorized and portrayed as superior to those with money and power. This attitude belies the fact that poverty and disenfranchisement can be extremely difficult, and that women are far more prone to finding themselves in such situations than men.

Like Dollhouse, the show also suffers from a seriously fetishistic view of Asian cultures which is endemic to many upper and middle class white people, in which idealized views of Asian society are promoted while Asians themselves are absent. The perpetuation of tired stereotypes about Asian cultures may not be immediately read as anti-feminist, except that the Companionship system is blatantly stolen from the complex and very controlling system used to promote and supervise geiko/geisha in Japan, and the rejection of the very female history behind this system is yet another example of the erasure of Asian women from Western dialogue. Cultural appropriation hurts women and men, but the Western world has a particular fascination with Asian women which is evoked and very pragmatically used in Firefly/Serenity.

Has Whedon created a world in which very problematic and sometimes shortsighted depictions of women can be used as a starting point to talk about feminist isssues, thereby bringing women’s issues to the attention of people who might otherwise ignore them? Or are the gaping knowledge and cultural gaps in Firefly/Serenity just another example of antifeminist norms on television? Or did Joss just genuinely not think about some of the very serious issues which might come up as people watched the series?