Foxibex and Stag

After 'Shindig,' a commenter asked, 'Do you consider yourself a strong feminist? All the other people who've watched Firefly and reacted this way to Mal/Inara that I know are pretty big feminists and it might be something like they can't stand that sort of male/female dynamic.' My response: --- Don't know about 'strong,' but feminist, yes. There's a really rape-y 'don't take no for an answer, you know she wants the D' element that rubs me the wrong way, and Inara happily enables it. I'd argue that Firefly encourages you to examine its gender dynamics. It's not an accident that the 'manliest' characters are named Jayne, Mal, and Zoe, for one thing. Inara uses her sex in exchange for capital, and it's discussed in the first episode at length. Zoe and Wash's slightly inverted gender roles are brought to light pretty freuqently. As for its creator, the same year Firefly aired, Joss Whedon had another abu...

Recap: Badger approaches Mal and offers him a job, if he can entice the client. To do so, he needs to go undercover at a high society ball on the planet Persephone. Also at the ball: Inara, accompanied by a rich client who wants her to stay with him. Mal jealously takes issue, and the client exposes his misogyny as he challenges Mal to a sword duel. Inara distracts the master duelist, allowing Mal to sneak-attack him and win. Mal wins the girl and the client's cargo: cows. Almost unquestionably the worst episode of the series yet. Mal's creepy, jealous-possessive relationship with Inara is by far the worst part of the show so far, and it's kind of disgusting the way Inara responds to it positively. Whedon clearly wants us to ship the pair, though - the client turning out to be a Major Asshole conveniently forces us, essentially, into rooting for Mal during the duel. But it's not like the show is entirely unaware of the fact that Mal is really the villain in this sto...