When first hearing of the film Serenity, people are most likely to say something like “it is made by Joss Whedon, the man who made Buffy the Vampire Slayer”.
This is true and the film does indeed have some touches that are in tune with this – for example a young women with unusual fighting ability, and characters who sometimes talk in a flippant way at very serious moments (although, of course, people sometimes do talk that way at very serious moments).
However, Serenity is rather different from “Buffy”. It is a serious science fiction film (yes there are such things) rather than a fantasy work (although I have nothing against fantasy works).
Serenity is based upon Joss Whedon’s short lived science fiction series “Firefly”.
It is about a group of people aboard a space ship named “Serenity” after the battle of Serenity Valley in which the Captain of the ship fought – on the losing side.
The ship is a borderline economic case, often in need of repair and the Captain undertakes jobs that are semi-legal or downright criminal.
The crew are a ragbag of people of different backgrounds and temperaments, brought together by a mixture of their own choices and force of circumstances.
In the film many of the questions raised in the series are resolved.
The film is also a good piece of work, well plotted, well acted and well filmed.
It does have some of the problems that plague so many Hollywood productions today – such as a tendency for people to say too much and too quickly (this may be hard for a British audience especially as many of the characters, unusually for an American film, speak with southern-western accents indeed more than accents, they use different words than people in the metropolitan areas of the English speaking world normally do now – although one of the experiments that Mr Whedon makes is to try and explore how ways of speech would change, and change back, over time).
However, what is interesting from a political standpoint is the basic story of the film.
The characters are lead, for a variety of reasons, in to a head on clash with the government – “The Alliance” its Parliament and those who serve it.
They are not fighting the government because it does not spend enough on welfare or education, or because it does not issue enough fiat money (indeed many people in the outer planets do not accept the government’s credit money, it has to pay in cash even some of the security forces who work for it), nor are they fighting the government because it is a selfish or corrupt dictatorship.
No, in the end, the characters are fighting the government because it wishes to create a better, more civilized world (or rather worlds) and because it is prepared to violate the nonaggression principle in order to achieve this objective.
Of course the film is not “realistic” all the time (even if one accepts the existence of technology that we do not have yet and people who hate science fiction will not do that – although there is less “high tech” stuff in this film than in most science fiction films). Some of the characters, sometimes, win fights that they most likely would not win.
However the basic feel of the film is realistic and good people die. The “baddies” have noble motives, and some of the “goodies” are far from saints.
The characters do not destroy “The Alliance” but they try and do what they can, and the film shows they are right to try.
Joss Whedon is sometimes considered a baddie because he does not like President Bush, and I certainly doubt whether he would call himself a libertarian (although there are not many reasons why a libertarian should like President Bush), but Mr Whedon could call himself a Maoist for all I care – he has still made a libertarian film.
And every libertarian (and non-libertarian for that matter) would be well advised to go and see Serenity.
Serenity deserves to be viewed by more people that have seen it and are seeing it. If any are out there who have modestly enjoyed the movie I urge you to rent (or better, purchase) the season on DVD. It includes extra episodes that never aired, and shows them in the order they were written to be shown.
It truly does fit many libertarian ideals that it has made my short list of libertarian movies or TV shows.
Plus, the libertarian philosophy is very subdued doesn’t hit the viewer over the head with a club.
Lastly, my wife and I (both sci-fi fans) agree that there is a lot in the setting that could have come from the mind of Heinlein.
This sort of rapid-fire speaking (as well as multiple characters trying to speak at the same time) was common in the screwball comedies of the 1930s and 40s. Get a copy of His Girl Friday, for example — Howard Hawks was noted for directing that type of dialog.
Took my 11 year old to see it yesterday. Wonderful movie.
Soon after it was 1st shown in the UK (correct order, all episodes) I bought the DVD, mainly to show up the idiots that cancelled Firefly. I’ve not been to the films in over a year, but I’m going to this & I’ll buy the DVD when it comes out. I figure the only way we’ll get more original tv & films is if we show our support for the ones that do come along. I also love Joss Whedon’s playing around with speech.
I guess that you mean southwest american accents since I didn’t here much Devonshire on the trailer. Or Cornish, which would really make it hard to follow.
I wasn’t sure if to watch Serenity or Night Watch, but it looks like it is going to be Serenity now!
I just saw the movie yesterday and have a couple of points I gotta make here.
First, they donn’t just speak in a southwestern accent, theyoften talk in a Frontier mid 19th century lingo, thats what makes hearing their speaking so great! And incomprehensible to the Japanese friends with whom I saw the movie.
Secondly Joss Whedon is a progressive, which makes me damn befuddled as to how he made such an obviously and powerfully libertarian movie and tv show.
And I jave to mention my favourite line!:
” because They believe you can make people better. and I don’t hold to that”
Captain Malcolm, in a speech toward the end.
If Joss Whedon made a libertarian movie it isn’t completely by accident, though certainly not what he probably intentded. Judging based on the political under-theme in “Buffy,” he seems like a Noam Chomsky-type leftist – that is, not necessarily a big-state leftist (Chomsky’s personal hypocrisies aside, what little bit of substance you can spoon out of his political rants it’s clear that, in theory anyway, he’s opposed to Soviet-style communism), but definitely an anti-corporate, anti-money, anti-establishment one. The one thing that Samizdata regulars and Whedon would have in common politically would be an outright hostility to the state interfering with people’s lifestyle choices. Without having seen this movie yet (though I plan to go this weekend), I strongly suspect our common ground stops and ends there. This doesn’t stop me being a Buffy fan, of course. I have only seen two eps of Firefly, but I have the DVD set and will get cracking on it as time permits. Whatever politics he espouses, the character development on Buffy was vastly superior to that of any other show on TV at the time, so Whedon earns my respect.
I have been watching the series on the Sci-Fi channel over here (all episodes in order) and have been enjoying it immensely.
I can see why many of my fellow libertarians enjoy the anti-state stance of the show. The main characters are entrepreneurs, acting, largely outside of, and in a sort-of opposition to, the state. They smuggle, they have a low regard for authority (o.k. disdain) and they have a professional “consort” on board which thrills the libertarian mind due to both the “legalized prostitution” angle, but also from the “people should be free to make their living as they see fit and since prostitution is illegal here, but should not be, then I like to root for the hooker on the ship” angle.
And the ship plows regions of space where government is almost non-existant.
But I think it is also a bit ironic that libertarians would root so for the show since in virtually every episode their caper comes awry due to dirty dealing, back-stabbing, sudden outbreaks of violence often resulting in death of various and sundry. To whit: they try to deliver smuggled or stolen goods only to have the recipients try to “welsh” on the deal resulting in battle.
So on the one hand they try to exist outside of the state with the benefit of free trade and doing work as they wish. At the same time, however, they constantly face the hardships that anarchy might well bring. Were everyone as noble as captain Reynolds then all would be well, but such is not the case…..
Garth must have been around young fresh faced libertarians, rather than bald old men like me.
I fully understand that life can often go wrong either because of bad choices (like mine), or bad luck (which the non libertarian, but still interesting, F.A. Hayek was fond of pointing out), or (as you point out) – because one gets betrayed.
No free market person (libertarian or not) ever claimed that there was perfection in human affairs – just that violating the nonaggression principle tends to make things worse rather than better (and makes things worse in often indirect ways that no one can predict in advance).
Also no one ever claimed that people were perfect – only that general moral improvment is not going to be brought about by the government. Sometimes civil society gets stronger and social insistutions (such as the family) get stronger (after all civil society is simply the interconnections between people and between such social institutions as the family, churches, clubs, fraternities, business enterprises and so on) – people (in general) can act a bit better in some time periods than others. Although perfection is not something we should expect.
The period after a major war in which big government (with all its regualtions and hidden twisting) has emerged victorious is not likely to be a period when everyone is acting as well as they might. Nasty times do not mean that everyone has to be nasty – but it does make being nice rather more difficult (and dangerious) than it might be.
Law is hard to maintain (by government law enforcement or by anyone else), and it is not helped when people claim that the nonaggression principle (the old view of justice) is too “simplistic” to be a basis for law, that one needs to “regulate people’s lives” as well. I am not thinking of you Garth, I am thinking of another person who might be one of bad guys escaped from the film Serenity.
Other people:
I stand reminded of the speech and multiple voices in old films – however the accents and ways of speech were different in this film (at least I believe they were).
I choose my words carfully, but I admit that for all the links between the West Country and certain American forms of speech I did not see that comment comming – my apologies.
The forms of speech were not quite Western (even in the 19th century sense) there was a bit of difference in there – and (I think) there was at times a bit of Southern speech in there to (although I am no expert on these matters – I am British).
One of the interesting things about American social evolution is that, in some ways, the South and the West are moving together socially – not just in things like music, but also in things like horse back riding becomming popular in States like North Carolina (far more popular than they used to be).
There seems to be a great arc going from Virginia right through the South and West (exculding the Pacific West), the great fear of the Union that did not come to pass in the war of 1861-1865 (when the West mostly sided with the Union).
Texas seems to be the State that somehow holds the South and the West together these days – is Texas a Southern State or a Western State? It is both.
Even the great “liberal” dream of Hispanics destroying independent spirit in Texas may not come to pass – “Tex-Mex” is popular, Hispanic Texans wear Lone Star State belt buckles and intergrate in other ways.
No, it is possible (no more than that) that the “liberals” will not get their wish at all.
Just because a man has brown skin does not mean he must worship government.
There is a bit of anti big government spirit in the South and West, President Bush may not be much of a leader for it (let us face the truth – he is a big spending Welfare Statist), but it is still there.
The actual Confederacy of 1861-1865 was not only made up of States where slavery was important, but it was actually more big government than the Union (there was more of a “Progressive” income tax, more fiat money was issued and so on). But the spirit of hostility to vast and distant government exists now (weak though it may be), and the numbers are different – there are far more people in the South and in the West than there used to be.
It is possible that the “Red” States (what the “liberals” call “Redneck” States) will one day start electing people less like George Bush and more like Ron Paul.
That is the leftists’ true nightmare. That the “simplistic” principles of the Common Law and the Constitution might come back and have words with them.
Of course the leftist may decide to have words with people first, and the economy is a mess of unfunded “entitlement” progrmas and a financial system of favoured banks (and other corps) based on vast bubble of government fiat-money credit.
Things may indeed get ugly if the whole thing just falls apart (although reform is still possible), in which case let us hope that some people not only know how to use their firearms, but also know that you have to be able to engage in civil interaction if there is to be anything worth defending with those firearms.
You are right Garth – if every business deal gets betrayed then nothing can be built. Still even people without a strong sense of honour can sometimes be interested in their reputations (a trader with a bad reputaion tends to run out of customers – and a man who just raids tends to get shot).
Let us hope it does not come to building things up again from a collapse. I repeat that reform is still possible – collapse is not inevitable.
Paul
Your points are well taken, and I very much admire your half-full outlook (sincerely).
However, I am–for better or worse–a tad more cynical. What makes you think that reform is still possible? I think we’re well beyond that point. Maybe in the 1990’s, but now I can’t see any realistic way out.
If they put a brake on credit and fiat expansion (or even fail to accelerate the inflation), it will collapse the entire ponzi scheme that is our asset-based economy and lead us right into a depression. If they continue the inflation, we’ll end up in hyperinflation. Not sure there’s any way out at this point. They’re got the tiger by the tail.
1) I recall that most of the time when a party cheat on a deal someone ended up dead or at least worse off than if they abided by the original terms of the deal. This illustrates how free trade is non-zero-sum game while introducing violence or fraud quickly leads to zero-sum.
2) Whedon, being a 3rd generation Hollywood type might find it fashionable and even important to be a left-leaning statist. However, I also get the sense that he wants to make “realistic” shows and a socialist nirvana like the Star Trek Federation just doesn’t comport with human nature.
3) I want Serenity to be successful, but it seems appropriate that the franchise like its main characters remain on the fringes. Star Wars sequels might have been much better if the original hadn’t become a blockbuster.
I hold that reform is possible (both of the fiat money credit bubble and everything else) – but I agree with anon that it is not exactly likely.
I have made the case for optomistic point of view in the past. But till I see at least one major Western nation reform I will not really believe it.
The ideology – whether for “cutting interest rates and boosting demand” when there is bust (hair of the dog – or “give me another fix”), or for regulations to correct problem created by the “unregulated market”, or welfare state programs to deal with education, health, old age (and so on) is just so strong.
For reform, to happen a nation somewhere will have to fall into bankruptucy – but then NOT collapse, to reform instead.
But to reform people must understand what reform is – and most people do not.
How can people choose something (freedom) that they know nothing about (indeed have just been told endless lies about)?
They certainly will not risk such a move whilst the system seems to work O.K. for them.
And even when the system really starts to fall apart, they will not choose freedom if they know nothing about it.
The old blood brothers of chaos and tyranny will take the stage instead.
Unfortunate.
But it only takes one nation to reform for people in other nations to see the option.
That is why modern statists tend to favour organizations like the E.U. or want-to-be world states like the U.N. (with its welfare rights and international agreements) – in order to close off the option that one nation (who knows which one) might reform and act as an example to others.
WARNING if you haven’t seen the film yet: this comment contains a spoiler. You may want to skip it.
With regard to Whedon’s politics, I’m surprised I haven’t seen any mention in all the reviews of what I thought was a pretty obvious allegory he was suggesting, one that strikes at the heart of the present fissure between libertarians who supported the Iraq war and those who opposed it. All libertarians immediately understand the story of Miranda as a perfect statement of the evils of social engineering and unintended consequences. And it seems that Whedon means it that way when he has his hero Mal talk reject the idea of trying to change people. But isn’t Whedon also, pretty obviously, referring to the Iraq war? The drug they force fed the Mirandans was called “pax,” and it created Reavers, i.e., terrorists. (I’m not sure how the deaths of everyone who didn’t become Reavers fits this analogy, but I don’t think that divergence takes away the parallel.) I think it’s true that this is a libertarian film, but I wonder whether any of its fans (including those on this site) would find their enthusiasm dampened by realizing that it’s Lew Rockwell’s libertarianism.
Quite right: Whedon is may or may not be your political friend.
We have one non-trivial thing in common with him politically, which is a deep hatred of social engineering – indeed, of arbitrary use of power in general. (It isn’t just Firefly/Serenity – this is a clear theme in “Buffy” as well). Other than that, there may be little similarity.
That one point is very very important, don’t get me wrong. But it’s premature to call Whedon an ally and this a “Libertarian” film. I would guess it’s more of an “enemy of my enemy is my friend” situation. Whedon and I have the same enemies – but that’s a long way from saying we’re natural friends.
That said – I have to admit that while “Buffy” was always pretty clearly anarcho-leftist themed from where I sat (as opposed to libertarian-capitalist), it mercifully lacked the welfare-state preaching that most leftist shows can’t resist sneaking in. While there were episodes about the drudgery of joe-jobs, the problems of debt and poverty, etc. – they always seemed to stop just short of suggesting that the government come in and do something about it. In fact, there was also a distinct lack of finger-pointing at the “greedy rich” in these episodes (there was finger-pointing at the “rich” in other episodes – but for being materialistic and shallow, never for being “greedy”). So everything I said above may or may not apply – I simply don’t know enough about Whedon’s politics.
I would really like to know what he thinks about government-funded social programs. If anyone has a relevant interview link handy, please do me the favor of submitting it!
As for the war – I think it’s practically impossible to have a job in Hollywood and support the war. There is something similar going on in the new Battlestar: Galactica (a first-rate series, I have to say). That is – there’s a clear anti-War on Terror subtext – but it’s neither preachy nor self-righteous. In fact, in most cases it’s a pretty sensitive treatment of what is a difficult issue by any account – and the parallels between the neo-Cylons and islamofascists only go so far. I get the impression a lot of times that Ron Moore is sneaking something under the self-appointed Hollywood lefty cadre censors’ noses. That is, he dangles a token opposition to the war (both the Iraq War and the Bush anti-Terror strategy in general) in front of them as his Hollywood insider credentials, but what he actually presents is a much more sensitive treatment of the subject than a lot of the Sean Penn’s and Tim Robbins’ generally like to see. I haven’t seen Serentiy yet, but until I do Whedon gets the benefit of the doubt. I would’t be surprised to see that whatever treatment of the Iraq War shows up in this film is equally – sorry to have to use this word – nuanced. 😉