Once More, with Podcast Episode 15: Curse Your Sudden But Inevitable Podcast!

[Athena]

Welcome to Episode 15 of the podcast, where we get down and dirty with Jubal Early. No, seriously, Taake is well keen! We basically fangirl all over Firefly for the 15th anniversary. It's a show we both hold very dear, in more ways than one 😉

To download this episode, check out what River's looking at below by clicking....



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As always, any feedback or comments, let us know.

 

[Fuffy]

Glad to hear the details about that one time, your husband will never know as he thinks that OMWP is a podcast all about Spike 😛

I'm only 40 minutes in and I'm liking it better than Firefly itself 🙂 (I'll listen to the rest after work tomorrow).

Anyways, I hope that the 2 podcasts a month thingy works out 🙂

 

[Taake]

@GwenRaiden to the rescue! Clearly I can't search for stuff on the internet because what I babble about being unable to find, she finds!

A Rapist's View of the World: Joss Whedon and Firefly

Now, I wanted this for the podcast, as you are a hardcore Wash+Zoe shipper @Athena ... but here, rebuttal?

Zoe, the token black woman, acts as a legitimiser. Her role is to support Mal’s manly obsession with himself by encouraging him, calling him ‘sir’, and even starting the fights for him. Zoe is treated as a piece of meat by both her husband (Wash, another white male) and the Captain. Wash and Mal fight each other for Zoe’s attention and admiration, both relying on her submission to them to get them hard and manly. In fact there is a whole episode, War Stories, devoted to Wash and Mal’s ‘rivalry’. By the word rivalry, I mean violent, homoerotic male/male courtship conducted over the body of a woman.

Zoe is not shown to have a personality of her own. She has no outside interests, no ideas or beliefs, no conversation with anyone other than Wash or Mal. She has no female friends, in fact she tends to dislike women. For example, she is the first one to insult Saffron in the episode Our Mrs. Reynolds, calling her ‘trouble’.

Zoe, of course, is meant to be our empowered, ass-kicking sidechick. Like all sidechicks she is objectified from the get go. Her husband, Wash, talking about how he likes to watch her bathe. Let me just say now that I have never personally known of a healthy relationship between a white man and a woman of colour. I have known a black woman whose white husband would strangle and bash her while her young children watched. My white grandfather liked black women because they were ‘exotic’, and he did not, could not treat women, especially women of colour, like human beings. I grew up watching my great aunts, my aunty and my mother all treated like shit by their white husbands, the men they loved. So you will forgive me for believing that the character, Wash, is a rapist and an abuser, particularly considering that he treats Zoe like an object and possession.

Joss Whedon does not share my view, of course, and he paints the relationship between Zoe and Wash as a perfectly happy, healthy union. If anyone is interested in portrayals of relationships between white men and black women written from black women’s point of view, I would suggest watching Radiance, Rabbit-Proof Fence and Serenades, skip Joss Whedon’s shit.

 

[Ethan Reigns]

Sorry, this has crossed the line. Anecdotal evidence of white husbands abusing black wives does not mean that this is inevitable. I know of mixed race marriages where this does not happen and I worked at a company that was run by one of these couples. And someone objects to a subordinate calling the captain "sir"? I would address a captain of a vessel I was on as "sir (or madam)" or captain and not think twice about it and I am a white male. Not having a personality of her own is somewhat dismissive - sometimes the drama does not require everyone to exhibit personal characteristics at any time other than when they are part of the story. If she is accusing Joss of rape, that is actionable. If she is accusing Mal or Wash of rape, that is not in the story.

 

[Anyanka Bunny Slayer]

That was so ridiculous, it's almost funny. Talk about delusional! Stupid cow.

 

[Real Angel]

Great episode, this is my third favourite podcast right now 😀