Firefly and its Rampant Stereotypes

Westerns always have tons of stereotypes, and it seems that space Westerns are no exception. I watched “Out of Gas” and “Jaynestown” from the series Firefly. In these episodes, the main character are Mal, Inara, Jayne, Kaylee, Simon, and Derrial. Mal is the stereotype of a captain; handsome, hot blooded when necessary, loyal to his crew mates, with the gaff worthy of Kirk to say “just fix it”. Jayne is the strong-man of the group, imposing in muscle far more than in intelligence. Inara is a “companion”, aka a classy prostitute who is the sexual goddess/priestess character. Kaylee is the ship mechanic, fulfilling the sweet little Southern girl role. Simon, the ship’s doctor, is the respectful, respectable gentleman of the group that’s always picked on for his good manners. Derrial is a pastor - the guy who has lots of quotes with deep religious morals.

Yay! Lots of stereotypical characters already! Then of course there is the pervading romantic tension between the characters and the morals laid out nice and simple, with no subtlety, in glossy one-liners throughout the dialogue. To top this stale supermarket cake with a rotten cherry, the cheesy fake Southern dialogue does the trick. Maybe this is just some stick-it-to-the-man angst of mine, but I laughed multiple times at how simplified and stereotypical the characters, plot and morals were.

This is not an isolated issue. While there are many incredible movies (I don’t know about TV shows) that are legitimately intellectually stimulating, this practice of force feeding morals to the audience is present in lots of mainstream TV and movie dramas. It’s frustrating to me because these over-simplifications of theological concepts and clumsy attempts to answer life’s questions miss the point; they can’t be answered by any one person from any one perspective. Ah well, I guess I’ll have to turn to more boring adult stuff for my intellectual stimulation (sigh).

Thoughts on Red Mars

Can a society be utopian? Aboard the Ares, the first hundred live in comfort, not having to worry about food or danger or other physical needs (most of the time). However, we see that the social aspect evolves from cooperative and somewhat utopian to everyone clustering into exclusive groups, losing unity.

We see the nature of a huge undertaking like going to Mars. During the first few months on the Ares and the first few months on Mars, the crew are most happy and most unified; as they settle into their routines on the Ares and on Mars, they become less happy, even though they have less to do or worry about. As a wise man once said, once you get used to doing something that you’ve been anticipating and planning for, it gets boring. Constant change is the spice of life.

On a side note, Arkady is the Socrates of the voyage: always questioning the status quo and sticking it to the man, whether that be NASA or his fellow crew members. He does a valuable service to the first hundred by challenging them to be more creative and think about the implications of colonizing a new planet for society, whereas Ann does the same in terms of the environment.

I’m interested in the implications about the environment in Red Mars. Ann points out to Nadia that the colonizers will ruin the natural beauty of Mars and replace it to suit their needs. This is the idea of the unspoiled paradise - land before humans get there. Ironically, we go to new lands often because it is beautiful and untouched, like the American West, but our presence there ruins that. In a way humans are to nature as the Borg to alien civilizations: we consume it, often without a second thought. The colonizers on Mars take it to a whole new level with terraforming. I think this is more morale than humans causing the extinction of tons of Earth’s species, but Ann does still have an argument.

The Giant Baby: a story written by yours truly

Zenith Jackson, captain of the Conquistador, paced back and forth as his first mate, Datt Mamon, explained the situation.

“The environment is friendly enough to humans in our suits. There’s little danger to the recon party. Well, we did pick up some large heat signatures dotted around the planet, but those are probably geysers or-”

“I want this planet, Datt!” interrupted Zenith. “Even though we can synthesize any other particle in the universe, this is the only place where we can find Hardtofindium. Do you know how much the crystals will be worth on the Interplanetary Black Market? Yeah, a lot! Prepare the team!”

Half an hour later, the four crew members shot out of the gleaming spaceship in the small shuttle craft.

“One hour until landing,” said Ella, a newbie shuttle pilot.

“Wake me up when we get there,” yawned Greg as he settled into one of the bunks.

Nicole, a robot maintenance specialist, glanced over as the figure began to snore. “How can anyone sleep so much?” she asked.

“Because he’s a security officer. I would know,” replied Joe.

Waking up Greg when the shuttle arrived, the recon crew stepped into the steaming air. Geysers shot up around them as they squelched into the bubbling soil. Joe pulled out his knowitalleter and scanned the surroundings. After a few moments he exclaimed, “I’m picking up a cluster of Hardtofindium over there!” pointing to a mound of soil a hundred yards away. The team trudged to the mound. Joe murmured, “The Hardtofindium is still here, but I’m picking up some sort of heat signature... it almost looks like-” The mound began to shake. Soil slid off on all sides as something rose, rose, two meters, three, four. Suddenly, the figure shook and sprayed the crew with soil.

“What the hell?”

“It looks like...”

“A baby!” Ella exclaimed. Albeit a baby four meters tall, with trees for legs and a head like a beach ball about to pop.

“But it’s green...”

A deep sound emanated from the figure, “Ahhh iizzz binn longg tyymme sinss I’ve talked. Hello, creatures. Why have you disturbed my sleep?”

“And it speaks English??!!” gasped Greg.

“Of course I speak English, you nitwit!” cried the giant baby.

Having slightly recovered her common sense, Nicole addressed the giant baby. “Excuse us for bothering you, but do you know where any Hardtofindium is?”

“Hardtofindium?” roared the creature, convulsing and making what seemed like choking sounds. “Why, it’s me! It’s in my skin! My skin is made from hardtofindium!”

“And there’s no other Hardtofindium, like in the ground?” asked Greg timidly.

“No, there’s none in the ground. We Bigcuties are able to biologically synthesize the crystals. It can’t be artificially made!”

Zenith, who had been listening and watching the scene through the hidden cameras in Joe’s knowitalleter, spoke a command into Joe’s earpiece: “Kill it.” Joe rapidly signaled to the other crew members. As the creature watched in confusion, the four pulled out their laser pistols and shot blinding high energy beams at the giant baby. After three seconds of shooting Joe stopped, expecting to see the massive baby topple to the ground, boiled from the inside.

“Oh crap,” he whispered as the creature towered overhead, unperturbed. It turned its head towards Joe, saying, “Well, that was rude of you.”

With remarkable swiftness the Bigcutie reached down and plucked Joe off of the ground. Joe’s screams for help were quickly cut off as the giant baby stuffed him in its mouth.

Onboard the Conquistador, Zenith spun towards his first mate. “What’s happening to the others?”

“They’re running away, back towards the ship, but the life-form is following them, and...” Datt trailed off as, one by one, the little red dots on the screen blinked out. “Oh my god,” he whispered, slumping into a chair.

A stunned silence filled the room. After a minute Zenith spoke, “Well, at least we didn’t go, like we’d planned on originally”.

“That’s true,” agreed Datt. Sighing, he shook his head and got up determinedly. “So what’s the plan? How are we gonna kill this damn thing?”

“How did it resist the laser beams?”

“It must be the Hardtofindium. From the scan Hoe ran, it completely dissipates huge amounts of energy, making laser beams useless.”

“Would rockets work?”

“No, Hardtofindium would absorb the impact.”

“The shrapnel too?”

Shaking his head, Datt said, “It would just glance off. This stuff is harder than diamonds.”

“So what you’re saying,” said Zenith, “is that we don’t have any weapons that can kill this thing?”

“... No.”

Narrowing his eyes and pretending to think about it, Zenith finally shrugged. “I guess we should just... leave... then.”

“Umm... I guess so.”

“Well... replicate some coffins, and um, we’ll hold a ceremony in a few days.”