Whores have long been a popular trope in various media: from literature to television and film, the whore is an iconic and instantly recognisable part of our culture and will often make an appearance in one form or another.
Unfortunately, these appearances are, more often than not, based on the worst sort of Othering. A process that objectifies, stigmatises, exoticses and dehumanises us.
But now and again, there comes an attempt to counteract that negativity, to show the whore for the complex, diverse and fascinating creatures we are.
The degrees to which such attempts can be successful rely on a variety of factors: Who’s doing the attempting, and what is their objective? Who is their intended audience? What background baggage do they bring with them? What cultural mores have they been inured in and how do these impact their misguided if well-intentioned efforts?
And so we come to Joss Whedon, self-proclaimed feminist sci-fi fantasy hero to geeks everywhere, and his short-lived show, Firefly.
Whedon has long been touted – and, indeed, promotes himself – as an advocate of feminist, female-positive representation within geek culture. The creator of the hit show, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, he is revered for his efforts to write strong female characters with dynamic personality and stories that revolve around them.
One could wonder why greater efforts by actual female writers have not garnered the same attention (or been afforded the same opportunity), but those ponderings could fill a book, as could the discourse criticising his treatment of female characters, which often aligns with tired old tropes of sexism and misogyny, though very well-concealed (even to the creator himself).
Right now we’re here to discuss Whedon’s efforts to positively represent sex work and sex workers.
For within the world of Firefly, one of the main characters of the show, Inara Serra, is what’s known as a “Companion” – a sex worker.
Before I go further I should state myself here as being a generally-admiring yet critical fan of Whedon and his body of work. There can be no doubt that he is putting genuine effort into presenting women as complex and multi-dimensional characters and that Inara herself succeeds as being sympathetic, likeable, engaging and generally well-portrayed.
However, this does not mean Whedon, as a heterosexual white man, is going to succeed fully in his efforts. People far more qualified than I have noted his failings when it comes to representation of People of Colour and certainly his representation of women and varying classes do fall into tiresome stereotypical tropes at times. I feel that, for all the good work he does, Whedon gets a free pass on his failings because of his loftier efforts and I don’t believe this is constructive or conducive to his improving as a creator.
It is my opinion that, if you champion yourself as an advocate of issues for one marginalised group, you have more responsibility to be aware of the issues that other marginalised groups face, and to take care in your representation of them. Otherwise it is hypocritical at best and outrightly privilege promoting at worst. The fact of the matter is, deconstructing a lifetime of embedded education is a subsequently lifelong task. Whedon’s ability to perceive, identify and critique discrimination and prejudice within the genre he writes does not mean he’s going to do it right or perfectly every single time. This is true of anyone with privilege.
I expect more from Whedon because he has named himself as someone desirous of dismantling a lot of negative tropes within the sci-fi/fantasy arena and who has tried to do so.
With that contextualising out of the way, let’s move onto the show and its vision on a particular aspect of sex work in a theoretical future.
The issues with Inara’s characterisation and the way she is contextualised within the world of Firefly are many and varied and have to do with equally complex race and gender issues in addition to those of sex workers. To explore them fully would require a great deal more space and time and this is not the appropriate forum.
But perhaps my greatest objections can all be summed up in the following three aspects of the vision of sex work Firefly presents. These aspects struck me most vividly as being problematic and are the ones that, more often than not, are used by non-sex working fans to argue for how progressive Whedon’s vision is.
Continue reading ‘More Than Just A Whore: Sex Work, Firefly and Audience Engagement’
