Godwinning all over the Firefly reboot

[sabotabby]

I feel guilty every time I post about something shallow and trivial. However, I enjoy shitposting and we could all use the distraction. The way I distract myself is being spicy in fannish communities.

If you have emotional attachments to a certain cancelled sci-fi show and its creator, skip this post.

Still with me? Okay.

So I want to propose a new TV show for you. It's set IN SPACE in the far-flung future, think gritty space dystopia, think found family, think QUIPS and BANTER and BIG DAMN HEROES. 

Our heroes are the crew of a spaceship. They dress in snappy black and silver uniforms. They're all played by white guys and women, most with blond hair, all of them extremely fit and attractive. They have a cool logo that looks great on merch. Their ships are very cool looking and the best in the galaxy. They stand up for the common man. 

They are fighting a snivelly and sinister enemy, a vast galactic conspiracy that is secretly pulling the strings behind every bad guy of the week. Maybe they turn out to be, IDK, some kind of lizard alien or something.

By the way in case you're getting ideas about historical analogies here, I should make it clear that the first officer on the heroes' ship is a Jewish woman and the heroes don't commit any genocides on screen. In fact, one of them has a speech about how violence is bad in the first episode! They are shown to be very against war crimes in fact, it's the antagonists who are doing all the war crimes.

Now, a poll:

Poll #34385 Which would be less bad?

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 18

View Respondents

Which would be better, if this show concept HAD to exist?

View Answers

Depicting the protagonists doing war crimes
10 (55.6%)

Not depicting the protagonists doing war crimes
8 (44.4%)

Comments

[sovay]

Since there's really no way to imagine it as Alliance=Confederacy and Browncoats=Union, and he also talked about writing it from the point of view of the losing side, you have to conclude that the Browncoats are the Confederacy.

I didn't realize the inspiration was as specific as a single book. There's a phenomenon in American Westerns which tends to valorize the Confederacy and I assumed Firefly was inheriting uncritically from that tradition. (Westerns which don't fall into it interest me, of course.)

[sabotabby]

He cited the book; personally, I think it is broader than that, because I think he folded in tropes simply because they're a common feature of Westerns and he wasn't thinking about it.

But the job of media criticism is to point out when someone is unconsciously throwing a bunch of very fucked up ideas into a popular thing, at least in part.

[sovay]

He cited the book; personally, I think it is broader than that, because I think he folded in tropes simply because they're a common feature of Westerns and he wasn't thinking about it.

I have unusually minimal exposure to Joss Whedon for a sf-oriented person of my generation, but I have never gotten the impression that he thinks very much about anything so long as it pops his id.

But the job of media criticism is to point out when someone is unconsciously throwing a bunch of very fucked up ideas into a popular thing, at least in part.

Do I look like I'm complaining?

[sabotabby]

Not at all. :)