Hi All.
I wanted to share this essay with everyone. It was written by Dale Wheat. We met him at All Con last weekend and he dropped it off to us. He wrote it for a class and I thought it was very good. It makes some interesting points about the film and the characters and I thought you all might enjoy it. You can find Dale's website at
http://dalewheat.com/ and he is part of the Dallas Personal Robotics Group
http://www.dprg.org/. I thought the robots at All Con were super-sweet! And I may have only tried to steal one of them a little bit.
Please read and discuss if you are so interested.
Dale Wheat
4 November 2007
Serenity as Dystopia
Joss Whedon's film Serenity illustrates a utopian attempt at a "better world" that ultimately produces very dystopian consequences. The concepts of free will, love and faith play a large part in this adventure story.
The story told in Serenity is set 510 years in the future. The people of Earth-that-was have settled in another solar system, one with "dozens of planets and hundreds of moons" (Whedon). The inner planets have formed the "Alliance", a blending of Anglo-American and Mandarin Chinese cultures with a strong, central government. The outer planets remain a wild frontier and traditionally resist as well as resent the control of the government.
The film centers around the flight of River Tam from the federal authorities after being liberated by her brother, Simon. River, a psychic, has gleaned certain incomprehensible truths from her proximity to "key members of Parliament". One clue that emerges is her utterance of the name "Miranda" before being subconsciously triggered by an Alliance broadcast into a fugue of unprovoked violence. Miranda turns out to be a newly-colonized planet that the Alliance has swept under the rug in an attempt to hide their terrible failures there.
Miranda also happens to be a character in William Shakespeare's play The Tempest, where she is quoted as saying, "O brave new world that has such people in't!" which ties it into our required reading for this semester, Brave New World (Huxley). Mr. Whedon succeeds in weaving many subtle cultural, religious and literary references into the fabric of his film, which is ostensibly a "space western" of the "action/adventure" variety.
Some themes in Huxley's dystopia and this film are similar, however. On the planet Miranda, an experimental gas was added to the atmosphere processors (G-23 Paxilon Hydrochlorate, or more simply as "the Pax") which was intended to make the population more peaceful and less aggressive, creating "a better world, a world without sin." This sort of technological "solution" to societal problems is common in utopian literature from the 17th century onward and in 20th century science fiction particularly (Claeys 3). The artifical reproduction in Huxley's Brave New World is a good if extreme comparison. The peaceful and theoretically euphoric effects of the Pax can also be compared to Huxley's "soma" (Sanchez).
There were two eventual and catastrophic consequences of the Miranda experiment. The majority of the population became so "peaceful" that they simply laid down and died, having ceased to work, interact with each other or even feed themselves. A small percentage of the population experienced the opposite effect and became the space-faring culture of supra-maniacal "Reavers".
When the crew of the Firefly-class space vessel Serenity solve the riddle of Miranda, they commit themselves to getting the truth to the rest of the known universe while the Alliance, in the person of an unnamed Parliamentary "operative" attempts to stop them and either reclaim or assassinate River Tam. This operative becomes the classic antagonist for the plot of the movie, embodying the steadfast and unquestioned belief that what he does is necessary for the better worlds to come about while acknowledging that he is "a monster", having no place in the future perfect world.
While the operative lacks either a name or official rank, he makes up for it by having an abundance of faith. He believes that what he is doing, while essentially evil in its particulars, is absolutely necessary and is not to be questioned. This faith makes him an especially difficult foe. Captain Reynolds is warned about the dangers of this operative's faith first by Shepard Book, who describes the operative as "trouble you've not known." He advises Captain Reynolds: "Only one thing's gonna walk you though this, Mal: belief." After initially dismissing the Shepard's advice out of hand, Captain Reynolds is chastised by the Shepard for assuming that when he talks about faith, he's only talking about faith in God. Captain Reynolds had previously stated his opinion that belief in God was inevitably disappointing: "... a long wait for a train [that] don't come." The Shepard continues, "The sort of man they're like [sic] to send believes hard; kills and never asks why."
Captain Reynolds' second warning on the dangers associated with the operative's faith comes from Inara Serra: "We have every reason to be afraid ... because he's a believer. He's intelligent, methodical and devout in his belief that killing River is the right thing to do."
While his lack of faith in supernatural forces is illustrated in several instances throughout the film, he is shown as at least being familiar with some of the details of Christianity. When he discovers Shepard Book fatally wounded and dying after an Alliance attack, the Shepard confesses, "I killed the ship that killed us... Not very Christian of me." The Shepard's final words are, "I don't care what you believe, just believe...", reinforcing his earlier advice.
When the ship's mechanic, Kaylee Frye, is instructed by the Captain to get the ship running smoothly while the rest of the crew are out on a "job", she tells him, "Have faith, Captain." His reply is, "Not today."
When the operative delivers his signature line to Captain Reynolds in their second fight scene near the end of the film ("Do you know what your sin is, Mal?"), Captain Reynolds responds, "Aw, hell... I'm a fan of all seven... but right now, I'm gon' have to go with wrath", referencing the "seven deadly sins".
In the beginning of the film, a robbery is planned and scheduled to take place "... right before Sunday worship ... won't be any crowds" although the nature and specifics of this activity are not detailed.
Other familiar faiths are referenced in the course of the film. Inara Serra is seen offering incense (well, mostly incense) at a Buddhist shrine. Although one of the Five Precepts of Buddhism is to refrain from taking life, she nonetheless helps in the final defense of Captain Reynolds as he attempts to broadcast the secret of Miranda to the rest of the universe, albeit with a bow and not a firearm. She also demonstrates a knowledge of and willingness to use martial arts in the first fight scene between Captain Reynolds and the Parliamentary operative. Later in the film, the marriage scene between Mr. Universe and his love-bot, Lenore, shows the breaking of a wineglass wrapped in a cloth, an ancient Jewish tradition. Mr. Universe can also be seen in the video of the marriage ceremony wearing a yarmulke.
The concept of the power of love is also explored in the film. When the operative confronts the director of the facility from which River escaped, the director begins to make excuses. The operative reassures him that he is not at fault, and the Simon Tam, River's brother, "... spent his entire fortune developing the contacts to infiltrate this place" to which the director replies, "And gave up a brilliant future in medicine as well", summarizing it as "madness". The operative corrects the director, pointing out that it is not madness, but "... love, in point of fact, something a good deal more dangerous."
The end of the movie returns to the specific topic of the power of love when Captain Reynolds reminds River of the "first rule of flying", which is love. "Love keeps her in the air when she oughta fall down, tells ya she's hurtin' 'fore she keens, makes her a home."
Captain Reynolds' lack of traditional faith is also exhibited in an encounter with Inara, where he explains himself to her by saying, "I got no answers for you, Inara. I got no rudder. Wind blows northerly, I go north. That's who I am." This leads us to believe that Captain Reynolds does not believe in any sort of predestination or fate. His words and actions towards the end of the film also reinforce the idea that he does believe in free will, and the right of all people to be able to exercise their own free will in determining their futures.
Further evidence of this belief is Captain (then Sergeant) Reynolds' role in the failed struggle against Alliance unification as a volunteer "Browncoat" during the Unification War.
The central plot of the film revolves around the concept of freedom and free will, as well as the futility of trying to change human nature, no matter how honorable the intentions.
While Mr. Whedon goes about the telling of the tale in the guise of a science fiction adventure, he succeeds in getting across many important concepts, which were also iterated in the original television series upon which Serenity was based. The most basic idea was that even though the future holds a lot of changes in technology and science, human nature remains essentially the same, despite efforts of those in power to change it.
WORKS CITED
Claeys, Gregory. “Introduction.” The Utopia Reader. Ed. Gregory Claeys and Lyman Tower Sargent. New York: New York UP, 1999. 1-5.
Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World. 1932. New York: HarperPerennial, 1998.
Sanchez, Julian. “Out to the Black: The existentialist libertarianism of Joss Whedon’s space western.” Reason Magazine 30 Sept. 2005. 4 Nov. 2007 <http://www.reason.com/news/show/32972.html>.
Shakespeare, William. The Tempest. 1623. 10th ed. Salt Lake City: Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, 1998. Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. 1 Nov. 1998. 4 Nov. 2007 <http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext98/2ws4110.txt>.
Whedon, Joss, dir. Serenity. 2005. DVD. Universal Studios Home Entertainment, 2005.
