Overview
- Essay #1 Draft is due by 11:00 pm tonight (on Canvas)
- Firefly: Myth and Control
It took me a while to get around to Firefly. I believe I first saw it in 2013 or 2014, but I’d heard about it for quite a while. People used to say it’s the best science fiction show out there. No one was lukewarm about the show: if they saw it, they loved it. I do think it’s a great show, but I think the praise is a bit exaggerated. I posted such a remark on Facebook, and boy did I hear about it! The person even deleted my post. I do like the ideas in the show, but the actors and delivery are lacking. Anyway, the show only had one season, and they did a film after called Serenity. They did it right, and I recommend it. It would be best to watch the series first, but, you can go straight to the film.
I chose this particular episode because it gives you a sense of all the characters, and it has some heavy ideas–slavery, myth, being a man, religion–in 45 mins!
Terms for Discussion
- Ideology: prevailing cultural/institutional attitudes, beliefs, norms, attributes, practices, and myths that are said to drive a society.
- Hegemony: the ways or results of a dominant group’s (the hegemon) influence over other groups in a society or region. The dominant group dictates, consciously or unconsciously, how society must be structured and how other groups must “buy into” the structure. For example, the former Soviet Union was the hegemonic power influencing the communist countries of Eastern Europe during the Cold War.
- Systemic: (adjective) pertaining to an entire system, institution, or object; something ‘systemic’ cannot be removed from the system.
- Genre: literary or other textual products “with certain conventions and patterns that, through repetition, have become so familiar that [audiences] expect similar elements in the works of the same type” (Dick, p. 112).
Structuration Theory
Before getting into myth, I wanted to highlight a theory about control. What are the things that control us? We aren’t just controled be force–police, parents, politicians, etc.–we’re also controlled by ideology, but it’s often invisible, and we don’t reflect upon it. Mark Fisher claims that “Control only works if you are complicit with it” (22). I like to consider Anthony Giddens theory of structuration when I think of Fisher’s argument. Structuration theory proposes that humans operate under a pre-existing social structure, which controls actions. Citizens abide by and reproduce the overall structure, but this means they consent to the agents of social control that govern them. Consider the following quotations from Giddens:
- “social structures are both constituted by human agency, and yet at the same time are the very medium of this constitution” (New Rules for Sociological Method 121).
- “To examine the structuration of a social system is to examine the modes whereby that system, through the application of generative rules and resources is produced and reproduced in social interaction. Social systems, which are systems of social interaction, are not structures, although they necessarily have structures. There is no structure, in human social life, apart from the continuity of processes of structuration.” (Studies in Social and Political Theory 118)
Reflecting and advocating Giddens’s theory, James W. Messerschmidt summarizes that “structure both constrains and enables social action” (p. 77). I’ve mentioned that media reproduce ideology, normalizing it. Well, it was already normalized, but it’s impossible to determine whether or not the media (broadly) developed the ideology first or reflected the ideology. We don’t need to worry about a starting point, however, because we can identify instances where culture mediates rules, norms, repetitive behaviors, etc., we can claim that our actions are not solely individually motivated. We reproduce and justify the social system by operating within it.
Giddens’s theory hasn’t been debunked and, although there are criticisms of his initial theory, there are many expansions of his theory. Structuration theory is a useful interpretive lens for cultural studies because it allows us to focus on agents and rules. Simply put, our actions create our world; our interactions maintain or recreate the world. Why do we agents follow rules? Why are there rules? In view of our texts, do humans (or aliens or robots) have any agency, or do they just respond to rules (their code—coding, program language)?
Jaynestown and Myth
As you watch this episode, think about how myth is created. Below is a definition of myth:
- Myth: Lillian Feder’s definition–“Myth is a narrative structure of two basic areas of unconscious experience which, of course, are related….In other words, myth is a form of racial [national, social, regional, etc.] history–a narrative distillation of the wishes and fears both of ourselves and the human race” (Dick, p. 188).
“[myths] tap into our collective memory,” our unconscious. - “Myths are ultimate truths about life death, fate and nature, gods and humans” (Dick, p. 189).
What comment could this episode be making about myths? Why do you think we believe in the good of Robin Hood-type characters? How does this episode complicate our version of reality and history regarding “great” historical figures? At the end of the show, the captain (Malcolm “Mal” Reynolds) tells Jayne Cobb that probably “every man who’s had a statue built of them was some kind of [scoundrel].” I wonder if we can reflect on that in relation to Confederate Monuments…
Some Key Moments of the Episode
This episode would go along great with the novel Autonomous by Annalee Newitz, but that’s more Canadian than American, so I didn’t assign it (but, as usual, I encourage you to read it…reading good science fiction makes you a better person). The novel has the theme of indenturedness (or slavery), which is where the Jaynestown episode picks up, and the “mudders” are indentured workers (think minimum wage, and then think 1 Million times worse).
- The shift boss tells the crew that they “pay the mudders next to nothing and pass the saving onto you.”
- Here are some stories about Nike’s sweatshops circa 2000:
- Boss Higgins runs the town of Canton and tells Inara she can call him “Mr. Higgins” because only people he owns use the title “Boss” for him.
- Think about the nature of work and undocumented workers taking on jobs Americans don’t want.
- Simon tells the crew that the ancient Egyptians used to give the slaves beer “liquid bread” to keep them alive and sedate them from rebellion. {There has been more recent evidence that slaves were not the only workers building the Egyptian Pyramids.}
- River tries to “fix” Shepard’s Bible, but he tells her the Bible doesn’t need fixing; faith is about believing in something.
- This scene is an obvious foreshadowing of why the mudders need the “Hero of Canton.”
- Mal tells Jayne that his statue (an idea) isn’t about him; the Robin Hood myth is something the mudders need because life is too terrible without hope.
- The episode makes viewers reflect on rituals, which are habits, customs, practices that cultures share and pass on, but the members don’t always know where they started.
- Inara’s “interaction” with Boss Higgins’s son is a critique of the “losing one’s virginity” ritual. However, afterwards, the son does become a man…exploring that might be a good Essay #2 topic.
- What are some rituals that you have? Have you ever reflected on why?
- Here’s Tor.com’s summary and critique of the episode
Also, here’s a goofy cartoon (two parts) that uses Nathan Fillion’s Captain Reynolds persona.
Future Stuff
Make sure you turn your Essay #1 Draft with outline in before 11:00 pm.
For the rest of the week, you’ll have the Preface, Introduction, and three short stories from William Gibson’s book Burning Chrome: “Johnny Mnemonic,” “New Rose,” and “Burning Chrome.” Of course, feel free to read all of the short stories in the book. Don’t forget to do your posts by Friday, June 7th. I hope to have feedback on your drafts by Friday, so you can revise and turn in the final Essay #1 on Monday, June 10th by 11:00 pm.
Works Cited
Dick, Bernard F. Anatomy of Film. (5th ed.). Bedford, 2005.
Fisher, Mark. Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? Zero Books, 2009.
Giddens, Anthony. The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration. Polity Press, 1984.
Giddens, Anthony. New Rules for Sociological Method. Basic Books, 1976.
Giddens, Anthony. Studies in Social and Political Theory. Routledge, 2015.
Messerschmidt, James W. Masculinities and Crime: Critique and Reconceptualization of Theory. Rowman & Littlefield P, 1993.