Charlie Jane Anders recently objected to the announcement of the Firefly animated series –
“…There’s also fact that Firefly stars a heroic Civil War veteran who happens to have fought on the side of the Confederacy. And the unfortunate way that the show stigmatizes Inara, who is supposedly a great dignitary due to being a traveling courtesan. Oh, and the fact that it’s an Asian-dominated universe that contains (checks notes) zero Asian people. Finally, as I saw folks observing on Bluesky over the weekend, it’s undeniably true that much of what was revolutionary about Firefly at the time has since been done better by things like Battlestar Galactica and the Expanse. (I would way rather have more of The Expanse, honestly.)…”
almost concluding with –
“So… “space western” is not a genre, and it doesn’t deserve yet another chance to try and become one. Space opera, on the other hand, takes what’s interesting about the western and combines it with a ton of other elements to make something genuinely exciting — and I know for a fact that Hollywood is groaning under the weight of countless unsold space opera scripts by some of the industry’s finest writers. (For cripes sake, Deep Space Nine/Andromeda writer Robert Hewitt Wolfe has a pilot script called Defender laying around!)
We don’t need to rehash a failed show from 25 years ago — we can create something brand new that might actually succeed.”
You can read the whole sorry thing by finding the link on File 770.
I could easily sum her entire piece up with “I don’t like space westerns so no one else should. Ever.”
About the only thing it’s lacking is a threat of dire punishments and consequences if you should dare to violate that edict.
(I won’t pick the easy, low-hanging fruits of celebrating diversity, inclusiveness, etc. by pointing out the seeming hypocrisy)
For the record: I liked the original show, I liked the movie and I’m happy to hear that they have found a way to bring “the ‘verse” back.
I could also end this here because in the long run, this whole thing is nothing but an expression of one person’s tastes versus another’s and saying “I know you are but what am I?” is pointless and gets boring very quickly.
I can’t though because being happy about a continuation of the series contradicts a whole mess of my own feelings and takes on things and I think this exception to the rules bears a little more than casual examination.
I have previously railed against “Enfranchisification”, which is the expression of Corey Doctorw’s Enshitification, in the realm of media (and almost as difficult to pronounces as Gernsback’s “Scientifiction”). I believe that we see it owing more to marketing influences than to any great artistic merits. No one wants to take a chance on something new when they can take no chance on a known quantity with diminishing returns. It stifles creativity and opportunity.
I’ve also previously ranted against “remakes, re-imaginings, redoes” and other Rs involving art. They almost always reveal a misunderstanding of the original materials, are usually distorted by new considerations for audience “packaging” (we need the over 40 female demographic to get on board, so lets create an entirely new character they can identify with….). ART should not be compromised by marketing considerations. Good works find their audience (sorry if that’s not reflected in your bottom line, but I want ART, not commodity).
AND I have railed against “science fiction” that’s isn’t science fiction, with a side-serving of rants against “sub-genres”. Pithy ranty summation: science fiction has a definition. Works not meeting the elements of that definition are not science fiction. Sub-genres are yet another intrusion of wanting to create well-controlled and understood niches (marketing) so that little effort or expense is required to fill the trough and earn the shekels. Again, it stifles growth and engagement. Those of us who discovered the genre through spaceship stickers (or ringed planet stickers) on book spines understand this: we were looking for “science fiction”. Not a specific kind featuring the same old tropes. An entire body of work that spanned the gamut. And, at least in terms of experience of the field, we’re much more knowledgeable about it, thanks to that non-specificity. We only had two sub-genres: Science Fiction we’d liked and Science Fiction that didn’t do it for us. And honestly, that’s all you need.
With that background, how can I justify being in favor of a new animated series for Firefly that is an expression of enfranchisification, embraces the tropes of a sub-genre and isn’t really science fiction? I’ll get to that, but first I want to address Ander’s claims about the show:
She castigates the series for presenting a heroic Civil War veteran who happens to have fought on the side of the Confederacy. Nope. Malcolm Reynolds and his Browncoat companions were fighting for independence of their worlds, not to protect slavery. (Spoiler: the movie – Serenity – is all about the fact that the Central Powers tried to enslave everyone with a drug. Taking a stand for a lost cause is a background element of the show, but that lost cause is not slavery, its independence.)
She objects to the way the show stigmatizes Inara, who is supposedly a great dignitary due to being a traveling courtesan. Sex work being elevated to high/elite societal status is not an unusual trope for science fiction (Ishtar, Time Enough For Love as one earlier example). It’s also a pretty obvious “flip” if you want to make your future societies different. It’s generally believed that the Companions in Firefly are modeled after Japanese Geisha’s, and Geisha’s were not prostitutes, they weren’t even whores, as Mal was fond of referring to Inara. And the dialogue always ended up dismissing Mal’s conclusions and supporting Inara.
She goes after the show for taking place in an “Asian dominated” setting, without featuring any “Asians”. First and foremost, there are no “Asians” in the show because everyone in the show is a descendent of the terrans who migrated to the ‘verse. There’s no Asians, no Europeans, no Africans, no Americans, no Pacific Islanders, and no lizard people from the center of the Earth. There is also evidence to suggest that had there been additional seasons, we would have seen that the “central planets” had populations dominated by “ASIANS”. Not to mention that Whedon was not the only one making casting decisions and he was apparently forced to change several characters’ racial affiliations. You can’t hold the show itself responsible for this “failure”.
Finally, referencing Firefly as a “Failed” show when it has become the poster child for good shows cancelled too soon and for no apparent reason is just plain not fair.
So how can I justify being enthusiastic about this animated extension of the non-SF space western franchise?
Because it fits into the “Science Fiction I Like” genre and not the “Science Fiction I Don’t Like” genre and, quite frankly, that’s all of the justification any of us need.
Steve Davidson is the publisher of Amazing Stories.
Steve has been a passionate fan of science fiction since the mid-60s, before he even knew what it was called.
