Serenity Found

by Jane Espenson

  River was a danger not only to the Patriarchal authority that made her a weapon, she was a danger to the ersatz family she had onboard Serenity, as in “Ariel,” when she sliced Jayne across the chest with a butcher knife, saying, “He looks better in red!” She was again a threat in “Objects in Space” when, in her own little fugue state, River found what she thought was a stick, but was in fact a weapon, which she pointed at Simon and Kaylee. In the film Serenity, Mal confronts Simon, saying, “You had a gorramn time bomb living with us! Who we gonna find in there when she wakes up? The girl, or the weapon?”

  I mentioned earlier that it was human choice that determined the ultimate fates of the women of the Whedonvese who had been made weapons, and thus to varying degrees been made objects, by these Patriarchal forces. A weapon is a tool. Tools are made to be used. But in the case of these women and their ultimate fates, it’s a specific series of choices made in specific contexts that lead them to what is often their self-determination to subvert their status as weapons/objects, to refuse to be used. In that this self-determination is other-directed, focused on the protection of immediate and domestic groups of real and substitute families, it can be thought of as the antithesis of the Patriarchal authority that has made objects/weapons of these woman. We can think of it as “Matriarchal” in that it is female-centered power-the empowerment of females independent of any external, “meddling” authority.

  As said earlier, Buffy achieved a measure of self-determination by standing up to the Watchers Council, motivated by a desire not only to save the world, but to empower her close friends and family. Dawn reclaimed her life from the monks who created her as a device to deceive Glorificus, specifically by reclaiming her blood, which she had earlier been unconvinced was blood at all, as “Summers blood.” The cloned Ripley, other-directed to save an Earth she has never seen and the remaining crew of the Betty, uses her weaponized blood to kill the Newborn Alien/Human hybrid to which she has a modicum of kinship. As mentioned before, the android Call has an other-directed need to save humanity from itself. The Potentials were actualized as weapons by Buffy, but it was an actualization that was a hijacking of the Patriarchal authority in the distant past that made the girls potential Slayers to begin with.

  River, of all the weaponized women in the Whedonverse, began as the most un-actualized, aside from the Buffybot. Throughout Firefly and most of Serenity, she didn’t have full control of her body, her speech, her mind. As we learned in “Ariel,” her brain had been repeatedly opened and operated on. Simon explained to Jayne about River’s stripped amygdala, “You know how you get scared. Or worried, or nervous. And you don’t want to be scared or worried or nervous, so you push it to the back of your mind. You try not to think about it. The amygdala is what lets you do that-it’s like a filter in your brain that keeps your feelings in check. They took that filter out of River. She feels everything. She can’t not.”

  Because of River’s near incapacity-in “War Stories,” she felt incapacitated to the point of asking Simon, “What am I?”-her actualization as a person occurs as she becomes actualized as weapon. Her true journey to humanity free of the influence of the Alliance begins with her “use” as weapon. At the start of the film Serenity, even Mal sees tactical applications for River, bringing her along on a job for the first time as an early warning detection device because of her precognition. While this is on one level an objectification of River, it’s also an act of inclusion, showing a level of acceptance of River on Mal’s part. When River is activated by the Operative later in the film via the infamous Fruity Oaty Bars commercial, it triggers not only her capacity to kill, but her capacity to remember, to have a sense of a past that will help her reclaim her humanity . . . the memory of the mysterious “Miranda.”

  River’s actualization, or her activation, as a weapon is at least partly an actualization of her self. Prior to her trigger through the Fruity Oaty Bar commercial, she had described her mental state in “War Stories” as a jumble of impressions, intimating that the jumble was keeping herself from being herself, from understanding her memories and controlling the functions of her mind: “I hate the bits. The bits that stay down. And I work. I function like I’m a girl. I hate it because I know it’ll go away. The sun goes dark and chaos is come again. Bits. Fluids.”

  Other-directed, family focused (or, more properly, “crew focused”) domestic issues override River’s Patriarchal, “meddling” weaponization so that she can be her own person, and reclaim those unique attributes that had been hijacked. This family focus is at least partly defined by notions of “home,” as was hinted at by way of the Council’s intrusion on Buffy’s home during the aforementioned Cruciamentum. The notion of Serenity as a domestic space, rather than your standard spaceship setting of most SF, is illustrated in the moment in the film Serenity when Zoe asks, after Mal has ordered the camouflaging of Serenity as a Reaver ship, “Do you really mean to turn our home into an abomination so that we can make a suicidal attempt at passing through Reaver space?” And the idea of “home” as a personal, mental, bodily, and domestic space is hinted at in River’s comment above: “We’re in their homes and in their heads and we haven’t the right.”

  Yes, the confrontation on the planet Miranda and the revelation of the terrible secret of the Reavers’ origins helps River reclaim her fractured intellect. But it’s the threat of the Reavers to her domestic reality, much like the threats the Council/Kryec and later Glorificus posed to Buffy and Dawn’s domestic reality, that fully realize River’s potential as a human being and weapon. Faced with the deaths of Book and Wash, seeing Zoe and Kaylee and Simon horribly wounded, she overrides her function as a creation of Patriarchal authority and defends her family, telling Simon before she confronts the attacking band of Reavers: “You take care of me, Simon. You’ve always taken care of me. My turn.”

  Fully actualized as weapon, to the point that she can kill scores of blood-raged Reavers, she is from that point on again fully realized as a person, functional enough to pilot Serenity along with Mal.

  The question arises: What is the overarching function of these “women as weapons” in the Whedonverse? I think the template is to be found in the story of the very first woman who was a weapon: Pandora.

  Pandora was the first woman on Earth according to mythology, created by our friend Hephaestus, the armorer of the gods and the creator of women as tools, at the order of Zeus. Pandora was manufactured out of earth and water by the same hands that made Achilles’s armor and Athena’s shield as a kind of time bomb to punish the world for Prometheus’s theft of fire from Olympus. Like River, Pandora was crafted with artificially enhanced abilities and gifts: beauty from Aphrodite, music from Apollo, cunning from Hermes, and so forth. Her name means “all-gifted.” We all know the story of the famous box of troubles she opened (in the original myth, it’s a jar or urn, not a box). But what doesn’t get discussed much is the gift she also released-hope.

  Buffy, Dawn, the cloned Ripley, and especially River-as re-directions of the punishing, meddling, Patriarchal authority that, Zeus-like, seeks to control us through force and fear-represent the hope of overcoming or subverting that authority. These women use that hope and actualize that hope by actualizing themselves, by taking control of their destinies in an other-directed way that is a boon to those of their immediate home and family spaces, and also to all of society. The freeing self-actualizations of all these women-weapons, impossible without their own capacity to feel hope, provide a means by which we all might be made just a little freer. They reclaim their use as weapons, saving us all from Glorificus and other apocalypses, alien genocide, and neo-fascist control. In so doing, they reclaim the strengths they have that Patriarchy has subverted and used for its own ends, and so make hope for us all a bit more viable.

  Though he shares some things in common with Hephaestus as the creator of women who are weapons, Whedon’s goal is ultimately the opposite, envisioning a recurring path of self-actualization that frees women, and u
s, from their limiting use as objects of force.

  Since 1990, MICHAEL MARANO’s work has appeared on the Public Radio Satellite System program Movie Magazine International, syndicated in more than 111 markets in the U.S. and Canada (www.shoestring.org). His commentary on pop culture has appeared in venues such as the Boston Phoenix, Independent Weekly, The Weekly Dig, Science Fiction Universe, and Paste Magazine. Marano’s short fiction has been published in several high-profile anthologies, including the Lambda-winning Queer Fear series, The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 11, and Outsiders: 22 All-New Stories from the Edge; his first novel Dawn Song won the Bram Stoker and International Horror Guild Awards. He is currently Fiction Editor of the horror publication Chiaroscuro (www.ChiZine.com). He can be reached via www.myspace.com/michaelmarano.

  Sometimes it’s hard to separate an actor from the character he plays, if for no other reason than the fact that they have a tendency to look so much alike. Sometimes actors come to resent this association with a character, and they struggle to carve out a space for themselves separate from the character, but sometimes they feel about it exactly as we all hope they would. Listen here to Nathan’s voice . . . the humor, the authority. Isn’t it a little . . . I mean . . . isn’t it a little Mal? And isn’t that fantastic?

  I, Malcolm

  NATHAN FILLION

  Somebody once asked me what it was like to be Malcolm Reynolds. Usually I get, “Why was Firefly canceled?” and “Is there going to be another season/sequel?” But what was it like? Specifically, to be Mal? I wasn’t quite ready for it. I mean, sure, it was great. Boots. Coat. Gun. Ride horses. Shoot guns. Shoot guns at horses. Stinks like awesome. But what was it like? It was so long ago it pieces together like childhood memories, complete with those moments of clarity that suddenly strike you with, “Oh, yeah! I remember that!” and a lot more moments of, “Really? We did that? Was I drunk?” But like those childhood memories there are images and feelings that are indelible.

  Getting the job was stressful. I’m convinced the process of auditioning is designed to weed out the weak. Yet somehow, I still got it. There was the other actor up for the role, of whom I’m a huge fan. There was the fact I had to do the audition four or five times. There was the huge stack of contracts in triplicate to sign, potentially spelling out how I was going to spend the next seven years-or eight months, whatever the case may be. The stakes continue to rise throughout the process. Actors get knocked out of the mix, narrowing the choices. More and more faces show up to watch you pretend to be a spaceman. The offices get bigger and there’s a special room for the audition. Meetings are held afterward while you wait outside. Trying to keep your cool during this traumatic affair is down to the individual, because there isn’t anything that anybody can say to make it any easier. You are on your own. But I wanted this part badly. All the things we love about Mal were staring me in the face. The humour (spelled that way on purpose for Canadians), the questionable morality, the darkness, the anger, the almost imperceptible softness. It was all just out of reach like some toy in a window at Christmas, with Tiny Tim on the cold side, fogging up the glass. Or a brand new crutch or something. A gold crutch. No, a cure. Anyhow, it’s safe to say the part was all I wanted.

  So, there I was. Going to get a tour from Joss of the not-yet-finished ship. I met him at the Firefly production office (which weren’t the offices we eventually wound up in) with the show logo on the door (which wasn’t the logo we eventually used). The sound stages were huge, and we had three. The ship was enormous and incomplete. Strange, how it first struck me as so bizarre and unreal, and then later became a home. Know this: I had never been on an hour-long, single-camera show. The entire process, the scope alone was new to me and very impressive. They had built an entirely new world, made up of scraps from the past and future. There were a lot of people who put a lot of work into making the quality of that show what it was. As the show went on, I quickly understood how much I depended on those motivated, creative, hard-working ladies and bastards (typed with love, you bastards). Certainly, I was a small cog in a smooth-running (almost all the time) machine that produced product. Bottled sunshine? White lightning? Liquid gold? Red Kryptonite? Call it what you will, it was great, it had kick, and would probably take ten years off Superman’s life.

  The first scene we shot was up on the catwalks in the cargo bay. It was me and Sean. This was it. The ship was ready. The lights were moody and the camera was running. Nobody really knew anybody yet. I knew my lines, but I didn’t have the handle on Mal that I have now. I was about to work with Joss. All the questions I had asked myself-“Will everyone get along? What will they be like to work with? Will I get along with Joss? Will people like it?”-were about to be answered. Then there are the questions you never think to ask that get answered. You learn these things as you go. It wasn’t till “Our Mrs. Reynolds” that I knew Mal was a rancher. Yet it wasn’t two days before I knew I could go to the little lunch camper out back and build a sandwich that would embarrass Dagwood. These things come with time. Until you experience them, the best you can do is smooth the gaps between the transitions, or bring lunch from home.

  Certainly, there are a lot of technical considerations when acting on camera versus on stage. Three years of working with talented, seasoned professionals on daytime taught me how to ignore, or work with, the distraction of the technical. (Thanks, all of you at OLTL.) Past that, I got to live a self-centered kind of fantasy. As the captain, I got to be the center of my own universe. I got to be closed off, angry, bitter, and enraged. I fought my demons in bars, punished myself in fights I couldn’t win, trying to feel something. In my daily life, I don’t get the opportunity to swing myself onto a horse and feed my murderous energy into the animal for a primal burst of speeding revenge. Yet how many countless hours of my life did I spend daydreaming of heroic exploits? I needed that in my real life. I think maybe we all do, and sadly, few get the chance. When I played Mal, I wasn’t playing me, I was playing me if I had been through what Mal had been through. I don’t think of myself as a hard man, or closed-off, but I know this: Mal and I have a very similar sense of justice. I think comic books gave that to me, along with an over-developed sense of vengeance. I felt Malcolm was crusty, yes, but on the right track. More important than believing Mal was right, was knowing that Mal believes he is right.

  I remember feeling like I owned the ship. When I was in costume and could find a moment on one of her two sets (lunch was the best time), I’d walk Serenity and just be Mal. I’d take in all her details. Nothing would escape my attention. It was just like the feeling I had for my 1975 Cadillac Eldorado, if the Caddy had somehow saved my life. I remember Serenity’s switches, lights, cables, and wires. I would try to fix things that were broken (try). I had a place at the head of the table. Either end, too. Other people could sit there, but it was understood that it was my place. ’Least in my mind. I had a rocker. I’d sit in it and space out in Mal’s head. Very cathartic. The ship had a smell. Dusty garage and bitter metal, like a penny. As for what she tasted like, you’d have to ask Richard Brooks.

  The cast . . . I can’t say enough. The rest of the cast played a huge role in how I played Mal. By virtue of my role, I got to work with everyone. Sometimes all together, but mostly just one or a few at a time. What satisfied, and impressed, me most was the process of discovery. Putting a scene together with actors who could find the real life, the moments that define characters and the relationships that live between the lines. I didn’t just watch; I was living it. Right there. Though for only moments at a time, I could be Mal. I couldn’t help it. You’ve got everyone dressed up, in the cargo bay, looking at, talking to, and treating me like I’m the captain. There were strange moments, weird suspended seconds when I bought it all. If you have ever watched an episode and felt a connection with a character, felt he was speaking to you, or for a moment were somehow transported and felt you were on the ship listening to the conversation beside you-that’s the feeling. Those instants that take
you away, pull you in. I WAS THERE. I lived those moments. I got my ass saved by Zoe so many times. I mooned over Inara. I hit Jayne with a wrench. There were moments I could believe it. You’d have believed it, too, thanks to Joss. Looking at Kaylee, I could tell what kind of man Mal was. Speaking to Zoe, I could tell what kind of leader Mal was. Arguing with Wash and Jayne, I knew the limits of Mal’s patience. They made me Mal. Looking back, I know now that everyone in the cast was, in essence, his or her character. What makes Jayne so Jayne, is that Adam is a Jayne. Jewel is a free spirit who was cast as a free spirit. Alan is a clever smart ass who questions authority. Ron once gave me the shirt off his back (true story-still a favorite of mine), Gina is alluring and powerful, Morena is elegant, Summer is grace, Sean owes me money. Off camera, I was able to spend my days with these people, and on camera, with their characters. I got to have them as friends twice. And I have been accused of being the leader when we were just hanging around. I’ve thought long and hard about this, because I feel it makes me sound pretty cool, but I want to be accurate. It is true that occasions arose when we wanted to spend some time together as a family-both cast and crew-be it a lunch date or a more serious shindig over the weekend. Sometimes I would watch as folks tried to agree on a time and a place, maybe an activity. As it can sometimes be when trying to organize ten or more people, it would get a little complicated, or no decision would be made at all. I remember taking the helm a little bit as far as saying, “We’re going to this restaurant at this time.” Or, “My house, Saturday.” But that was the extent of it, really. So, it wasn’t so much that the captain-y thing rolled over into my real life. More so, I simply had the desire to be with these people outside of work. I just wanted to continue connecting. I just wanted to be with my friends. I wanted them around me. I wanted to be around them. You’ve seen them. Can you blame me?