Blog #9 - Serenity Prospectus

I plan to do my analytical research paper on the Firefly movie, Serenity. Although I have yet to watch the movie, as I wish to see it after I finish the series (this weekend), I have read enough about it to decide what I want my paper to be about. The movie focuses primarily on the corruption of the government through two aspects. The leading cause of the conflicts in the series are caused by illegal government testing. They tested a new drug on a planet, leading to the Reavers, and they tested on River Tam, which she escaped from. This leads to the second point of corruption, as the government tries to have River assassinated. Although Joss Whedon has stated that the Alliance is meant to represent the American government is some fashions, I want to research the actual practices of governments in this field. This will be rather difficult, due to the fact that it's not a common practice for such information to be revealed, but there have been enough practices of the sort throughout history to glean enough information. On who and for what reasons are scientific tests done without consent? Who is assassinated by the government and why? Firefly provides us with a government that does things on a wide scale, and we can see the darker undercurrents that move some of their actions. While it's not so obvious in the real world, I think it raises a bunch of interesting questions. A good scene to use would be one where they discover how the Reavers were made.

Blog #8 - Getting myself lost and confused in the philosophy of post-modernism

Here is another example of more postmodern nonsense. Trying to use irony to describe reality doesn't result in reality being ironically different, it just creates seemingly philosophical contradictions. Saying that a metaphor has the ability to be more real than whatever situation it is referring to is, in my opinion, not feasible. A metaphor can help to present a intangible idea in a more tangible sense, this is true. However, the reality of intangible ideas, such as fears, is that they exist as something intangible. Putting them into a more tangible form does not make them more real, it simply presents them in a fashion that can be more easily understood and represented, and sometimes even related to. Doing so does create a fantasy, a fictional setting in which it does become a reality. It is a reality within the fantasy, but the fantasy is not real within reality. Metaphor can bridge the gap between reality and fantasy, but is unable to ever set fantasy above reality, despite what we may perceive. For example, the “M” from McDonald's seems to represent a hyper-reality where one can obtain fast food that is quick and always the same. This is not true, but we seem to associate the “M” with such things nevertheless. Thus the fantasy is presented, and within the fantasy presented by the “M,” the food is fast and identical.. Within the fantasy of the arches, that is all reality. However, the arches truly promise nothing, leading to the argument that the hyper-reality is what we perceive, and is thus more real than what actually constitutes our reality. This is false, as the consciousness does not make up reality through its assumptions, but the reality of what McDonald's truly is makes up reality. Although the “M” does not promise us fast and identical food, it is nevertheless connected to McDonald's, although a more realistic one. The reality is that the “M” is related to a realistic McDonald's, where the food is finite and contains minute differences. The “M” only represents a metaphor to the perfect McDonald's food, and even should we believe in the fantasy, it becomes obviously false once you get the food and reality sets in. The “M,” while being a metaphor for the perfect McDonald's, is unable to ultimately change our perception of the end reality of our food. Therefore, any hyper-reality is really only an illusion, and cannot last in the truth of our actual reality. In any fantasy, a metaphor can indeed become real. As the article describes it, Buffy takes metaphors and makes them more literal in order to better express something can be hard to communicate otherwise. These metaphors create an amusing fantasy, often ironic, to express something hard to express in reality. This fantasy where our fears are literal and tangible is a hyper-reality, an illusion similar to the perfect food promised by the “M.” However, the reality is that fears aren't tangible in the same way the food isn't perfect, and what's found in the confines of fantasy can't change reality, despite how we may perceive it.

Blog #7 - Episode 6 of Firefly

This episode was quite possibly the funniest thing I have watched in a long time. From the opening scene that had the captain in a dress to him marrying a con artist, this episode was primarily about humor. Although it did introduce a new character, and explore some more between the captain and the Companion, everything was done in as humorous a light as possible. In a short summary, the captain accidentally marries a rather attractive a woman. This woman ends up seducing (or trying to) everyone who comes near her, and then steals a lifeboat and sends the crew to their deaths. The crew manages to escape this fate of course, and go get their revenge on the con-woman. Naturally, when the captain gets married, Inara the Companion becomes quite jealous of the newlyweds. She is told at one point that the captain is dead, and immediately rushes to his room, kissing him once she finds out that he is alive. Humorously enough, she also gets some of the drug that knocked him out when she kisses him, and promptly passes out herself. This leads to some funny moments later when she tries to deny her actions and pretend that nothing happened. Most of the show's humor does tend to be darker; most of the jokes seem to revolve around death or tools of death. This kind of humor really fits the setting of a harsh, western-style life, since the characters are constantly in near-death situations. They seem to be the types that joke about the things that scare them, or that they're familiar with.

Blog #6 - Episode 5 of Firefly

This episode of Firefly pretty much set the scene for a bunch of new mysteries, as well as some developments in character relationships. Mostly (and thankfully), this episode focused on one of my favorite characters, River Tam. River is the character with the most mysterious and quirks in the Firefly series. Played by the adorable Summer Glau, she is schizophrenic, telepathic, morbid, intelligent beyond belief, and remarkably good at dancing. River was sent to a school when she was younger that did some terrible things to her; it apparently traumatized her to her current state. This episode showed a younger version of River, a cheerful girl who still displayed an odd tendency to say creepy things. The modern River isn't much like her younger self; she often falls into frightened fits where she screams and throws things violently. She barely ever talks coherently, and when she does, it is either a disturbing fact, an airy philosophical statement, or a detailed history of someone's past. The latter seems to indicate that she can read minds. When the townspeople in this episode discovered this talent, they immediately deemed her a witch and starting the ever-classic burning ritual. Interestingly, some townspeople seemed to be okay with River until she started revealing information that compromised the integrity of some of them. Once she did this, the situation went from the townspeople being calm and collected to screaming that God wanted her dead. Whether or not they legitimately thought God wanted her dead, or infusing religion with their own fears and intentions isn't something I particularly want to discuss in my blog, I just wanted to point it out.

Blog #5 - Episode 4 of Firefly.

Continuing with one series, I watched another episode of Firefly. Another episode, another classic bar fight. This episode seemed mostly to focus on the profession of Inara, and the nearly hostile romantic relationship that she doesn't quite have with the captain. Her job gives her the title of Companion. A Companion is essentially a woman who is well-paid for her “services.” Interestingly enough, a Companion seems to be a title to be respected, and nearly admired, as opposed to the heavy negative connotations that the equivalent job in our world brings. A Companion is typically very refined, elegant, and astoundingly polite. Although Inara may be special, rates for companions seem to be remarkably high. These high prices typically mean that only people with stature are able to obtain a Companion's services, giving a stronger image to the high status of the seemingly respectable courtesans. It is even stated in previous episodes that having a Companion around can influence some doors to open that would otherwise be unavailable. If Inara is any indication, a Companion has to be well-versed in subtly and skillfully maneuvering a conversation in such a way that allows her to discuss personal matters without causing distress to her patron. Inara seems to particularly be a gem amongst the Companions, often having people joke about men begging her to stay. Her occupation and customers seems to trouble the captain, who may or may not harbor romantic feelings for her. Whether he is simply a jealous man, or simply has a knack for punching the more malicious customers is up for debate.

Blog #4 - Episode 3 of Firefly.

This installment of the Firefly series displayed a much more disturbing tone than the previous episodes. Focusing on the cannibalistic savagery of the Reavers, a mysterious race of apparently pure evil. Reavers seem to be a primal mix of rapists, cannibals, torturers, and mechanical geniuses, and tend to blur the lines between those roles. As described in an earlier episode, if they board a ship, they would “rape the crew to death, devour their flesh, and then sew your skin onto their clothes. And if you're really lucky, they'll do it in that order.” The acts they commit are so brutal and warped, that being forced to witness them commit the atrocities will result in one losing their sanity, and reverting to a Reaver himself. This all happened to a rather unlucky survivor in this episode. After watching his entire ship be submitted to the acts of the Reavers, he cut his tongue in half, mutilated his face, and began killing pretty much anyone who came within stabbing distance. Interestingly enough, military personnel don't seem to have much information about the Reavers. Although from what I've read, the military caused the Reavers to become the way they are through a failed drug experiment, the military seems to not be willing to help fix this at all. Now, I don't mean the sense of fixing where the government wants to make it right just because it's the right thing to do, because the Alliance hardly seems that altruistic. I would imagine that the government would attempt to quell the Reavers' behavior to prevent people from finding out the dark side of the government's actions. Whether I have missed the reasoning or explanation behind this or not is yet to be seen, but I can't imagine that the Alliance would let them run amok like this, especially when they are so bound and determined to recover just one little girl.

Blog #3 - Episode 2 of Firefly

      In this episode, the crew was hired by a slightly shady businessman to perform a train heist. The group managed to pull it off more or less successfully, but ended up in a serious moral dilemma as they discover that the stolen goods are actually medicine for the sick townspeople. The medicine was being delivered by the Alliance, which is the government in control of the worlds in Firefly. Once the goods were stolen, the Alliance abandoned the townspeople, and cared incredibly little about their stolen cargo.

      The perception we get of the Alliance is what truly interests me in this episode. In both this episode and episode 1, we are given the strong impression that the Alliance is not a benign government. Although this is mostly done through the bitter comments of the captain claiming that they “interfere” almost nonstop, a truly darker side is hinted by the supposed torture of the young River girl. In this episode, the Alliance plays the bad guys by ignoring the stolen cargo and leaving the townspeople without medicine. Or that is how we were supposed to interpret the situation, in my opinion.

      What is not focused upon is how the Alliance were the original ones who sent the medicine. Without the goodwill of the Alliance, the townspeople would not have had any chance in the first place. This could be contradicted if the townspeople had purchased the medicine already and it was simply being delivered, but due to the poverty-stricken looks of the people, I can't imagine that to be the case. It seemed to be the goodwill of the government, and while they did wrong by abandoning the people, I believe that the show is trying to focus too hard on making the government a malicious entity.