Joss Whedon a rapist and Firefly irredeemably sexist?

[matgb]

Um, favour, having read this screed, can one of the lesbian feminist sisters reading this, or indeed anyone with an interest^[1], especially those of you that said you liked Firefly please confirm my suspicion that A Rapist's View of the World: Joss Whedon and Firefly is in fact an ill-informed biased rant of the sort that can give decent feminists a bad name?

Because, y'know, while I'm happy to accept that it contains some inadvertent sexisms, that the idea of the Companions Guild is going to split opinion and that nobody is perfect, I was sorta of the opinion that, for an SF TV series, Firefly was actually pretty good about gender and race issues, and I most certainly don't think that Zoe was objectified from the get go. But, as in all things, I welcome sane alternate positions and am always open to persuasion. Just that, well, that rant has put me off giving the positions put forward any credence.

ETA: Well, she's deleting comments all over the place, not just made by you guys but also from those made by people coming in from all over the place. Bloglines gives her over 100 incoming links, Blogger Blogsearch gives her 144 (Technorati proves its uselessness yet again by giving 17). Best I've seen is this, courtesy of ladyegreen in the comments here. Biggest point I've seen raised that I didn't really highlight in my initial post is that by declaring Joss (and Wash) to be rapists for the reason she states is to belittle those who have actually experienced rape and devalue their experiences dealing with it. Given a few people I care about a great deal are included in that number, it really annoys me when that sort of extremist argument is used. Ah well, lunatic of the day and all that—she's censoring most of the comments that are put in, and letting some in from some people but not all of them, her journal, but I really don't see the point myself.

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[1] Because, y'know, I tend to try to take the opinon of everyone seriously until and unless they prove their opinions to have no merit, and don't really like judging based on gender or sexuality, I find groupthink to be a bad idea regardless. Don't know about you.

Via James (again), who doesn't share my opinion on the merits of the show.

Comments

[matgb]

Nah, Bing and other covered it. IT's refreshing to see someone so far away from your worldview that it's scary, I just wish this sort of extremism wasn't "our" notional side in the big picture, makes us all look bad even if we disassociate.

Reading comments this morning have cleared my mind a bit. Just...

[innerbrat]

I have no problem, as a feminist and someone who strives for sexual liberation, nor as someone who has been and has known, actual victims of sexual assault, disassociating myself from someone who can't tell the difference between sex and rape.