Dear Joss Whedon– Don’t take black ops so literally

The title says much of it, really. I do hope I am not the only one to notice that in Firefly and Serenity, Mr. Whedon made all of his Operatives black guys. Seemingly incompetent black guys, no less. Not to mention some more icky racial subtext from the Confederacy-aspect.

The key word is seemingly. In the Firefly ‘verse, because the heroes are all renegades from civilisation in one fashion or another (even Inara), having the Operatives supposedly be clever assassin types who keep getting flummoxed undermines the premise of their cleverness. That is to say, in the movie Serenity, Chiwetel Ejiofor’s Operative getting tricked just makes him appear incompetent and stupid. But his intelligence is merely constrained by expectations that the Firefly crew would behave as ‘civilised’ (softer) folk do among the Core planets.

That subtlety is quite lost in terms of presentation. Similarly, by portraying Jubal Early as a chatty psychotic in Objects in Space, Whedon undermines his presumed and stated competence/intelligence. Although Early is not an Operative, he is serving that function.

Shepherd Book, as an inactive Operative, narrowly escapes some of this, but all three ‘Black Ops’ serve a function similar to what happened to select black guys during Reconstruction, post-Civil War. The ones who were voted in as Republicans. Or the soldiers up North who were technically free but still stuck in subservient roles during the War.

Each Operative is clever, but yet flummoxed by country folk from down South. There’s blind devotion to a white-instantiated ideal that is crushed by shocking revelation. Jubal Early, as an insane bounty hunter is a subversion of this mini-trope, but because he ends up appearing stupid, the subversion just backfires. And I will not even get into the BLACKRAPIST thing that I can only hope was accidentally tossed in.

Is this where science fiction teevee is really at? Is this all POC, especially blackfolk, can hope for? White people can be absurdly clueless about race, and yet those three roles were large parts (one recurring). These roles allowed three black male actors to not play gangsters or rappers. Instead they played roles written to showcase intelligent, dangerous, interesting guys who ended up appearing incompetent and throwaway in practice. Le sigh.

When I get to discussing the Companions, then my irate side will come out. This is just a bagatelle.