sigelphoenix

I just read an article on Joss Whedon and race, and I highly recommend it. It covers all of Whedon's series, even the comic book Fray, but the most interesting bit is on Firefly/Serenity, and how it represents both progress and regression in terms of Whedon's treatment of race.

Part of the reason I liked this article so much is that the writer comes from the same perspective as me - a great fan of Whedon (or at least Firefly) who is mostly satisfied with both his artistic talent and feminist politics; yet also disappointed by his attitudes toward race. I've been conflicted by criticism of race in Firefly, because on the one hand - yeah, it's a great show, well-written, and has some of the best female characters I've ever seen on television, so I don't want to spend too much time enumerating its flaws. But at the same time - why the other-ing and fetishization of Chinese (language, people, culture), why the replication of stereotypes in the casting of black actors, and why why why the 'lookit how liberal I am!' color-blindness? This article, I think, does a good job of balancing a fan's indulgence with a progressive's criticism.

Some highlights:

"I love Joss not least because he is very good (not perfect) on gender, but I think his greatness on gender is undermined by his inattention to consistent treatment of the major intersections of race and class. And he’s so damned good at dialog and characters and world-building that he could be perfect if he would just get his shit together."

"There's nothing wrong with creating a fictional world that is progressive or not, racist or sexist or not. But whatever you do, it needs to make sense. If it takes place in today's world then interracial and same-sex relationships make real impacts on real people's lives because of racism and homophobia. If it takes place in another or future world where racism and homophobia don't exist — well, then, I'd like to know how we got there from here, and it better damn well be internally consistent."

"If the world is not internally consistent, if it depicts a whitewashed world, if it ends racism and sexism and homophobia without ever nodding to the fact that they used to exist or shaped the current world, if it does any of these things then it's a problem, and not a problem that can be solved with suspension of disbelief. In the racialized and politicized world in which these works are created and consumed, the problematically unrealistic depictions of race, racism, sexism, etc., in a fictional world cannot help but be read as idealization of, normalization of, or advocacy for that flawed world."

And the entire section devoted to Firefly is great, but here's a taste:

"The 'Verse is much more suggestive of Whedon & crew's take on politics: generally progressive, comfortable with feminism, interested in but a little clueless about class, and deeply uncomfortable with dealing with race and racism. So the racelessness of the people of color is the white boy version of racial utopia: color-blindness, where we can all just appreciate each other for the color/texture of our skin and hair."