More Allecto: Our Mrs. Reynolds, Pt. 1

Hey, guys, it's my 600th post, and what better way to spend it then trashing a proselytizing lunatic feminist that I don't like? My first Allecto rebuttal is here: http://thelightsandbuzz2.blogspot.com/2009/03/response-to-rapists-view-of-world-by.html

So today's article deals with the Firefly episode Our Mrs. Reynolds. You can read the original here: http://allecto.wordpress.com/2008/04/06/a-rapists-view-of-the-world-our-mrs-reynolds-part-one/ and get the full effect of the batshit that I am watering down for you now. I wish I had time to refresh my memory by watching the episode, but unfortunately I'm in university and I barely have enough time to shower. So I'll go from memory as best as I can.

I like to go into these recaps with no prior knowledge of what I'm reading. The Host was great fun to do because I had absolutely no spoilers. I had read the first Allecto article before I recapped it so I had a pretty good idea of what I was rebutting. However, I haven't read this article, so it's kind of akin to going onto a battlefield with no weapon and no armour. I feel a little apprehensive.

Before I start, I urge everyone to watch Firefly. It's an awesome show and you will also get a better idea of exactly how much nonexistent subtext Allecto reads into it. Especially the stuff about the "intense homoeroticism" that SPOILER doesn't actually exist.

It was such a pleasure to write the first part (wanting to throw up for two weeks after having watched the trash notwithstanding)...
Much as I felt after rebutting your first article.

Allecto starts by mentioning that comments will be harshly moderated, which roughly translates to "I hate people who disagree with me, so I will essentially pretend that they don't exist." She also mentions the "enthusiastic response" to her first article. Well, DUH. The only people who read her livejournal are radical feminists like herself. Of course they're going to agree. If the link was posted on Whedonesque, then it would be ripped apart.

Then she launches into an attack against the commenters who disagreed with her. Blah blah blah, Allecto, come ON. And then I'm not quite sure here...I THINK she's saying that there is no such thing as a male feminist (ha ha ha, she compares them to unicorns, and I almost wrote "a male unicorn") but I don't know if she's being sarcastic? Who really knows with her.

Okay, in the scene she's referring to, Mal is dressing up as a woman so these bandits that they are confronting will be put off their guard. He pretends to be married to Jayne. Jayne says he married an ugly creature, Mal gets fake mad, and then they start shooting things.

Allecto says that's it's super anti-feminist because Jayne jokes about making Mal prettier? Even though the joke here is that Mal is a man, and as such makes an ugly woman. I don't know, I just don't see the anti-feminism. And then she says they're joking about rape but I don't see that in this scene either, unless she's just referring to Firefly in general. If so, that's bad writing.

So the ‘woman’ sitting by the driver of the carriage is actually Mal in drag. Shock, surprise, this is real funny shit huh, women? A man in drag, teeheehee. SO radical. And feminist, huh? What do you think, does Joss get a cookie?
Well...it's funny. But I don't think it's MEANT to be radical or feminist.

Drag is often used by men as a way of expressing woman-hatred and they dress it up as humour.
Except...Mal dressed up as a woman to surprise the bandits so they would be caught off guard and Mal and Jayne could get the upper hand. I HIGHLY doubt that they just manipulated the whole situation and engineered it so they would fight bandits JUST so Mal could dress up as a woman and "express woman-hatred". That seems like a lot of effort, not to mention it kind of endangers their lives.

Also, I thought cross dressing was what men who were confused about their sexual identity did. It has nothing to do with hating women. If anything, it's an extension of self-loathing and self-conflict.

A bit later Mal talks about how he likes to wear dresses with Inara. “Like woman,
I am a mystery,” he says of his enjoyment of wearing dresses. Sorry, Joss, score zero for that one. Women aren’t a mystery, WE ARE FULLY CONSCIOUS HUMAN BEINGS.
I'm sorry, I don't even know what to say to this one. First, he doesn't ACTUALLY dress up in drag all the time. That's the joke. And how does being mysterious=unconscious? I don't get how being a mystery is a bad thing.

Where the hell does Joss Whedon do his research on women????? What women does Joss know that he can portray them like this????
Allecto!!!! Multiple punctuation does not help get your point across any clearer!!!! Please stop, as it is giving me a headache!!!!!

So then the crew of Serenity finds a woman on the ship who has been traded to them. She is now apparently married to Mal. Allecto loses her shit because Zoe thinks it's funny. She goes into one of her diatribes about black women's personalities and thoughts and feelings. First, I don't like how she keeps bringing race into her articles because race isn't an issue on Firefly and it kind of undermines her argument and is very jarring when she does talk about it. Second, I don't know whether or not she's black, but I do know that she is assuming to know the thoughts, feelings, and hypothetical reactions of millions of individual black women. It seems to me that she is now the anti-feminist, as she is assuming that all black women are basically robots with their thoughts and feelings programmed into them with no individuality. I don't know, it just strikes me as counter-intuitive.

Saffron is all, "Are you going to kill me? Am I not pleasing?" and Mal is like, "Dude, of course I'm not going to kill you.

Ah Mal, Mal, Mal. So gallant, so kind, so noble. But just one question, Joss. Do you know what happens to women who defend themselves from violent men? Have you heard of Patreese Johnson, Renata Hill, Terraine Dandridge, Venice Brown, Dixie Shanahan, Yana Ladgari, Mary Winkler, Sherry Mariana, Marva Wallace? (This list is by no means exhaustive.) Women who defend themselves from men who are trying to kill them have their children taken away from them and are locked up. That is the stark reality of what equality means for women who live under male supremacy.
Here she goes again, assuming that every single female who tries to stand up to violent men will suffer the same fate. I don't understand this. It's like she's telling us that any woman who tries to stand up to a man will suffer harshly. Hasn't she heard of Harriet Tubman, Zora Neale Hurston (BOTH BLACK, might I add), Cloelia (http://www.badassoftheweek.com/cloelia.html), Jeanne Hachette (http://www.badassoftheweek.com/hachette.html), Agustina d'Aragon (http://www.badassoftheweek.com/agustina.html), Anne Bonny (http://www.badassoftheweek.com/bonny.html), Joan of Arc, Grace O'Malley (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_O%27Malley), Chen I Sao (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ching_Shih), and for a more contemporary example, Susan Kuhnhausen, who fucking killed a (male) killer hired by her husband and she's like 50, all after being clubbed in the head with a claw hammer? And why exactly am I being forced to find examples of strong women for Allecto? Isn't that her job? You know you have a flawed argument when...

Moving on.

And just a tip Joss, from one writer to another.
Allecto, writing manifestos and posting them on your livejournal doesn't qualify as being a writer. Also, I'm not going to write down the tip, because it's stupid.

So Book (WHO IS A BLACK MAN. This is apparently very important to Allecto but really doesn't matter at all in the context of the story) says that if Mal takes advantage of Saffron, he's going to the special hell. One they reserve for child molesters and people who talk in the theatre. So, here's a guy saying that taking advantage of a girl is wrong. Allecto's response? Well, duh, OBVIOUSLY this shows that Joss watches porn!

Yeah, I don't get it either.

Then we get to her pet hate, the Zoe/Wash relationship. As we know, since Zoe is black and Wash is white, it doesn't matter what outward appearances are: he must be raping/subjugating her behind closed doors. Allecto has never personally seen a healthy relationship between a black woman and white man, so obviously they don't exist. I've never seen a wildebeest, etc. Saffron cooks for Mal, Wash looks to Zoe hopefully, but she is taking none of his shit. Allecto skips right over Zoe being strong and not bending to Wash's desires, and just says it's anti-feminist because Wash wants Zoe to cook for her. Whatever, it's just a joke, etc.

On another level, the trading of women and the naming of Phallic weapons, the sharing of homoerotic tales of male violence (Jayne’s story of how he acquired his gun), this is part of the larger romance of the show, the homoerotic, masculine connection between Mal and Jayne.
Hee. Not much I can say about this. She's like those insane shippers who are all HARRY/RON FOREVER. Just...no. Very rarely are there genuine gay relationships on TV shows. I know. I watch a lot of TV.

Part 2 will come...later. Tomorrow is a planned Labyrinth breakdown. I usually need a few weeks between Allecto dissections, and David Bowie and his magical tight pants are just what I need to recover from today.