Beschreibung:
A short lived series created by Joss Whedon, Firefly nonetheless developed such a loyal following that Whedon was compelled to write and direct a big screen sequel in 2005. The show continues to generate a life of its own in books and comic books. This collection of twelve essays focuses on a number of themes including colonialism, race, gender, and politics.
According to Joss Whedon, the creator of the short-lived series Firefly (2002), the cult show is about “nine people looking into the blackness of space and seeing nine different things.” The chronicles of crewmembers on a scruffy space freighter, Firefly ran for only four months before its abrupt cancellation. In that brief time, however, it established a reputation as one of the best science-fiction programs of the new millennium: sharply written, superbly cast, and set on an exotic multicultural frontier unlike anything ever seen on the small screen. The show’s large, enthusiastic fan following supported a series of comics and a theatrical film, Serenity (2005), that extended the story, deepened the characters, and revealed new wonders and dangers on the deep-space frontier.
In Firefly Revisited: Essays on Joss Whedon’s Classic Series, Michael Goodrum and Philip Smith present a collection that reflects on the program, the characters, and the post-cancellation film and comics that grew out of the show. The contributors to this volume offer fresh perspectives on familiar characters and blaze new trails into unexplored areas of the Firefly universe. Individual essays explore the series’ place in the history of the space-Western subgenre, the political economy of the Alliance, and the uses of music and language in the series to immerse audiences in a multicultural future.
These essays look at how the show offered viewers high adventure as well as engaged with a range of themes that still resonate today. As such, Firefly Revisited will intrigue the show’s many fans, as well as Whedon scholars and anyone interested in the twenty-first-century renaissance of science-fiction television.
AcknowledgmentsIntroductionMichael Goodrum & Philip SmithFilmography1. Firefly and the Space Western: Frontier Fiction on Fast-ForwardJohn Wills2: “A Man of Honor in a Den of Thieves:” War Veterans in Firefly and SerenityDavid Budgen3: “See What’s Inside:” Understanding the Reavers’ Posthuman Identity and Role
in Firefly and SerenityGareth Hadyk-Delodder & Laura Chilcoat4: At the “Corner of No and Where:” River’s Unmappable Body in the
Firefly/SerenityverseLisa Perdigao 5: “This is Where I Am . . . Ain’t a place of Wishes:” Kyriarchy and the Preservation of Power in Better DaysSamira Nadkarni6: Politics of Loss: The Historical World, “the Right Thing to Do,” and a Utopian Community in FireflyDennis Sobolev7: Speaking Chinese: Music and the Exotic in FireflyS. Andrew Granade8: “Where Does Any Story Begin?”: Book Chapters and Whedonverse ChoicesDean A. Kowalski9: Lighting Out for the Black: Firefly and the Suspicion of Governance StructuresAndrew Howe10: “They Couldn’t Let Us Profit, It Wouldn’t Be Civilized:” Economic Modalities and Core-Periphery Relationships in the Political Economy of Firefly-SerenityHoward Kahm 11: The Future Isn’t So Shiny: Blade Runner, Firefly, and the Effects of American Consumerism in Modern ChinaTara PrescottIndexAbout the Editors and Contributors